Halo: Combat Red
by Xorncon - Number 0
Summary: The last hope for the crew of the Pillar of Autumn lies within the hands of Sarge, Simmons, Grif, and Donut...we're so dead. Halo Combat Evolved, with the Red Team acting as the Master Chief. Lots of language.
1. Waking Up

Totally out of the blue, no pun intended, but I started watching RvB recently, and I found some old chapters of this ancient story I've been working on and I decided to submit it and see what happens. So yeah, I submitted, and now I'm going to see what happens. Leave reviews!

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"Ugh…"

"Get up ya big orange baby!" A fist connected with Grif's helmet.

"Ouch! What the fuck Sarge!?"

"The time to sleep is over. We've been woken up from our hibernation to finally kick some ass!"

"Yeah, just like we kicked ass on Reach." Sarge grabbed Grif's arm and threw him out of the cryo chamber. Grif landed on the solid steel floor, hitting with a painful thud. "Come on Sarge, what good would I be in a war anyway? Can't I just go back to sleep?"

"No Grif, we've been awakened by Capitan Keys. We have to do something," the other Spartan stated.

"Oh stop being a kiss ass Simmons."

"Can't you think of anything new Grif?"

"Can't you think for yourself?"

"Alright enough. We need to find Donut! Where's he at?" The three red Spartans looked around until a forth cryo chamber opened up and Donut fell out.

"Donut, can you hear me? This is Simmons."

"Mmh…Simmons."

"Okay," the maroon Spartan kicked his pink partner, "Wake the fuck up Donut!"

"Oh Simmons! How've you been? I had the most wonderful dream, and you were in it."

"I don't even want to hear about it."

"Alright," Sarge began, looking up at his squad, "now that we're out and about what do we do first Simmons?"

"Uh…I think we should probably make sure out suits are working properly."

"Not now soldiers," came the captain's voice over the intercom, "I need you four down here now."

"But sir, I think it would be better if we test our suits first and…"

"On the double trooper!!"

"Alright sir…cock-bite."

"What was that?!"

"Nothing sir," Simmons lied quickly.

"Alright then you heard the captain, let's get moving!" Sarge ran towards the door, opened it and ran down the hall. At the end of the hall was another door that suddenly exploded launching him down the hall.

"Sarge!" Simmons cried out.

"I'm okay!" Sarge stood up suddenly with a few scratches to his armor. "But to avoid unexpected explosions that would most likely kill one of us, Grif will take point."

"Shit."

"Don't worry, it'll be easy. First jump over those pipes there. Donut will follow after Grif then Simmons then me." Grif jumped over the pipes followed by Donut and so on. The reds soon came to a half closed door.

"Well I guess we can't go any further. Damn, I guess we're going have to turn back and…" Sarge grabbed Grif and slammed his head onto the steel door.

"Crouch down you idiot." Grif groaned, holding his face before he crouched and walked past the door. The red team continued until Grif walked into a firefight between marines and Covenant.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Grif dove across the room to take cover.

"Simmons! I need you to go and back those marines up!"

"Well I can't do that Sarge! We don't have any weapons!"

"No, but they do. So distract the aliens and get them to fire at you so then we can have a chance to run away!"

"Uh…why can't Grif do that sir?"

"He tired and just like everything else in life he failed. Now it's up to you!" Suddenly the doors began to shut separating the humans from the aliens. "What the sam hell?" Sarge turned to Donut who had hit some random button.

"You know, you guys could've just hit this button that says 'lock out aliens'."

"Yeah we could've. Grif take point again!"

"Fuck that! Tell Simmons to go first!"

"You baby! If I had my shotgun I'd shoot you now! Simmons take point!"

"Uh…well sir, private Donut got us out of the last jam so maybe he should take point."

"You pack of pussies! Donut take point or I'm canceling your subscription to the People's magazine!"

"Yes sir!" Donut took point and walked down a dark, but short hallway. The door opened and there revealed an Elite.

"BLARG, BLARG HONK, HONK!!"

"OH MY GOD!!" Donut dove back from the large alien. The Elite ran off as two marines ran onto the scene, guns blazing.

"Sirs the captain is waiting for you on the bridge!" Grif walked up to one of the marines.

"Hey can we have your guys' guns?"

"What?! No! We need these to fight off aliens."

"Oh come on man, just give us one gun!"

"You're supposed to be the bad ass Spartan soldiers who could kill an Elite with their bare hands," the second, British marine snapped.

"Who the fuck told you that? I can't even open jar of ketchup with my bare hands."

"Grif, hurry the fuck up!" the second-in-command shouted.

"God damn it." The reds continued on until they reached the bridge and the captain.

"Good to see you red team. Things aren't looking good. Cortana did her best, but we never really had a chance."

"Cortana?" the orange Spartan questioned. A purple, holographic woman appeared on a pedestal. "HOLY SHIT!!! I didn't think woman were that tiny!"

"Grif that's an advanced AI you dumb ass," Simmons snapped.

"…Is she single?"

"Grif just shut up." Suddenly the ship began shaking violently.

"Report!" Keys commanded.

"The ship is shaking!! Let's get the fuck out of here!" Keys and Sarge both punched Grif in the back of the head.

"I think we've been boarded captain," Simmons said.

"Will you all shut the fuck up and let Cortana tell me what's wrong!?" the captain shouted.

"Sir, fire control to the main cannons is offline!" a marine shouted.

"Sir that was my last option," Cortana said grimly.

"Shit, we're screwed!"

"Shut up Grif," Captain Keyes ordered. "We're abandoning the Autumn. That means you too Cortana."

"While you do what, go down with the ship?"

"In a manner of speaking, I'm going to try and land the ship around this area of the structure. Now Sarge I'm entrusting Cortana to you alright."

"Yes sir." Sarge grabbed the chip which contained Cortana and placed it in the side of his head.

"Does that hurt Sarge? Sticking things in your head like that I mean?"

"No you idiot. It's not in my head, it's in my helmet, which means that there are no harmful side effects, right captain?" Keys said nothing, "Right?"

"Hey how about I get you all some guns and we can drop this topic."

"Finally," Grif said. Keys held out four identical pistols. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. This is the command center and all you have are pistols?!"

"Take it or leave it soldier."

"Fine," Grif replied as each of the reds took a pistol.

"By the way Grif, yours doesn't have any ammo," Keyes informed.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Now get moving troops." The four reds saluted and exited the command center. Upon exiting they heard gunfire in the next room.

"Let's go men!" Sarge charged forward as a marine was shot down. "Well I have a new gun now." Sarge crouched down and picked up the marine's assault rifle. "Now let's go men!" Sarge charged in with his gun blazing while the other three stood out of the room.

"So who wants to go in first?" Simmons asked.

"I vote you Simmons. You're Sarge's favorite so you should die with him."

"Fuck you. Sarge would want you to go out there and die first so you should go first." While Simmons and Grif were arguing Donut walked into the room and started firing as well. As they continued arguing, Sarge walked in and shot at their heads.

"You idiots! Stop arguing and get over here."

"Jesus Sarge, did you have to shoot at our heads? What would've happened if you hit us?" the whining orange Spartan exclaimed.

"Then I'd give you CPR."

"For a bullet wound to the head? How does that make sense sir?"

"You tell me dumbass. Now let's go." Grif walked into the room where the fighting had taken place earlier.

"Wait, this is the cafeteria?! Where's all the food?!"

"The aliens ate it all Grif," the pink Spartan answered.

"Damn it Donut! Why didn't you stop them?!"

"I did! You and Simmons were too busy arguing to notice."

"Well did you save me anything?!"

"No, it was all gone by the time Sarge and I got here."

"God damn it!" The reds made their way through the ship towards the escape pods and on their way of fighting many enemies they found themselves in a dark hallway. "Jeez I can't see a fucking thing in this dark hallway."

"Donut turn on your headlight!"

"Yes sir!" Donut did as instructed, "AH!!!!!!" The pink Spartan quickly flipped his light off.

"Donut what was it?" the leader asked, holding his gun up in combat readiness. "Whadya see?"

"There was a spider right in front of me."

"You big baby!" Simmons shouted. "It's just a spider and you have armor that can take bullet shots!"

"Let's hurry up and get the fuck out of here!"

"Now why're you suddenly so worried Grif?"

"Because there may be bats in this fucking hallway!"

"Okay first of all this is a state of the art human spaceship, I'm pretty sure that are no bats on board. Idiot."

"How do you know!?"

"Everyone shut up," Sarge barked out.

"I can't believe I'm stuck with this pack of idiots," Cortana thought to herself. The group managed to get out of the hallway and straight into another fierce firefight.

"Shit!"

"Grif go out there now!"

"First of all I'm in the back of the line, secondly during this whole fucking time I've only got one clip of fucking ammo for this god damn pistol!"

"Donut, you're in front! Go charge those aliens!"

"Yes sir! WAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!" Donut charged with his assault rifle blazing.

"Hell I didn't think he'd do it." Simmons and Grif looked at Sarge suddenly in shock, "Alright Simmons you're up next: move across the room providing cover fire so I can get out."

"What about Grif sir?"

"Unfortunately Grif has no choice but to survive this fierce fight. But don't worry!" Sarge turned to Grif and punched him in the visor.

"What the fuck!?"

"That's what you get for being useless. Now go Simmons!"

"Yes sir!" Simmons turned to the aliens and started firing at them as he moved across the room.

"Alright Grif, this is our only chance to make a mad dash to the escape pods!" Sarge and Grif then bolted out of the hall and towards the escape pods.

"What about Simmons and Donut?"

"They have to stay behind boldly and sacrifice themselves so we can escape!"

"Or we could fit them in the escape pod with us," Cortana's voice replied. "There are two left Sergeant."

"Nonsense Cortana, why wouldn't Simmons and Donut want to sacrifice themselves nobly in the line of duty!?"

"Because your radar is showing them running right behind us…" Sarge and Grif stopped and turned to look and sure enough Donut and Simmons were catching up to them.

"What happened?"

"We killed the aliens sir."

"You did? Okay then." Suddenly a plasma shot flew and almost hit Sarge in the head. "TAKE COVER!!" The reds dove in separate directions for cover and began firing. Well all of them except Grif who didn't have ammo to spare. "Cortana how much time do we have?!"

"About four minutes."

"Damn it!" Sarge then noticed a shit load of grenades in front of some far away cover. "Grif!" Said orange Spartan turned to Sarge, "You want to kill aliens right? And not the injured of defenseless Grunts right?"

"Fuck yeah I do!"

"Then run up there and get some grenades and throw them like hell at the enemy!" Grif looked to the grenades, the distance, the Covenant firing at them and back to Sarge.

"Fuck that sir."

"Don't worry, we'll cover you!"

"Will you really?"

"Of course!" Grif hesitantly stood up and ran like a bat out of hell to the grenades. He dove towards the cover and smacked his head against the metal.

"You lying son of a bitch! You didn't cover me at all!"

"Well we needed some window of opportunity to fire back, and that's what we were waiting for! You just ran before we gave the signal! I'm surprised you survived though!"

"You bastard!" Grif grabbed one grenade and chucked it at the enemy. It exploded sending two Grunts to their deaths.

"Good work, now try killing the ones that could kill us! Like the Elites!" Grif threw two more grenades, lowering an Elite's shield as Sarge ended its life with his assault rifle. "Alright let's head to the escape pods! Simmons, go with Grif, Donut you'll be coming with me!"

Simmons ran towards Grif, jumped over the cover and headed towards the escape pod. A marine tried to make his way into the pod but ended up on the ground.

"Oh no, oh no!" Grif pushed the marine back down to the ground.

"Get the fuck out of my way!"

"Grif you fucking idiot!" Simmons picked up the marine and threw him into the pod. "Punch it!"

"Yes sir!"

"Oh shit, that's a chick?!" The escape pod detached from the ship and headed towards the ring world.

"What is that thing lieutenant?"

"Hell if I know sir, but we're landing on it!"

"Oh shit! This is bad!" The pod entered orbit and started shaking violently.

"Hold on!!"

"What else were we doing!?"

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So yeah, hope you enjoyed and I hope it was believably RvB dialogue. If you enjoyed, leave reviews please.


	2. Landing

Again, old ideas, just editing and revising so that's why always with the quick updates. Anywho, hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter too

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Donut slowly opened his eyes, everything around him coming into focus and realized he was in the back of the escape pod. "Oh…man, my freaking head." The pink Spartan walked out of the pod and saw Sarge standing in the middle of a dozen dead marines. "What happened Sarge? How did all the marines die?"

"They died during the crash! There's nothing we can do for them."

"If they died during the crash, then why are all to bodies outside of the pod?"

"To be honest with you Donut; I don't hold out much hope for the others that were on the Autumn, we could be stuck on this planet…"

"Ring," Donut corrected.

"Right, either way we could be stuck here for awhile and we have no idea if there are any stores to buy food."

"You mean you…"

"Killed them," Sarge finished.

"But why!?"

"Didn't you hear me earlier? We won't have food for days! These will just have to last us until then."

"Wait a second…"

"What now Cortana?" the red leader asked.

"I'm picking up Covenant drop ships closing in."

"Oh no!" Donut shouted as he frantically scanned the skies.

"How close are they?"

"Very close. We're going to have to cross that bridge and hope they don't find us."

"Or…better yet…" Sarge said slowly turning to Donut.

"Uh oh…" The Covenant ship slowly descended upon the crash sight. Grunts as well as two Elites jumped out. They searched around and investigated the bodies.

"Blarg, blargy, blarg," said one Elite.

"Honk, blarg, blarg honk blarg."

"Squeal, squeak squeal," added in a Grunt.

"Blarg honk!" fired back the Elite. The Elite grabbed the spike on the Grunt's back then tore it off, killing the tiny alien.

"BLARG HONK BLARG!?"

"Honk blarg."

"Now Donut!"

"Blarg?" Two grenades flew out of the escape pod and blew the Elites to chunks. Sarge and Donut ran out of the escape pod with their rifles shooting down the remaining Grunts.

"Haha! Take that you smelly aliens," Donut shouted before T-bagging the dead bodies. "Who's the superior race now!?"

"Donut, the showboating is for me, not for anyone else. I've earned the right with my superior ranking."

"What about the T-bagging," Donut asked.

"You just shouldn't do that in general…" A loud screaming caught the attention of the two reds as they saw a Grunt fleeing with its arms flailing around in the air. "I got this Donut!" Sarge sprinted forward as he placed his gun on his back. The red leader quickly caught up on the small alien and then punted it in the ass, sending it flying off the edge of the canyon. The Grunt screamed as it flew up then fell down into the seemingly endless abyss. "Haha, ten points! See Donut, that's how you insult a dead enemy!"

"Sergeant, we've got two Banshees coming in quickly," Cortana stated with Sarge's head.

"Dur grr dur. Donut, what grenades do we have left?!"

"Uh…none sir."

"Damn it!" Suddenly plasma shots from heaven rained down on Sarge and Donut. "Get in the pod!" The two reds ran into the pod taking cover.

"What do we do sir?"

"We wait in here until they get tired and give up."

"Actually their fuel rod cannons can destroy this escape pod," Cortanta pointed out.

"They can? Oh…Donut…"

"Yes sir?"

"RUN LIKE HELL!!" Sarge and Donut ran and dove out of the escape pod just as one of the Banshees obliterated their cover. "That's it!" Sarge began firing at the nearest Banshee, "Take that you smelly blue alien!"

"Sir, do you really think that the assault rifle will take out that Banshee?" Suddenly the Elite's corpse fell out of the ship as the Banshee crashed to the ground.

"See Donut, I wasn't aiming for the ship, I was aiming for the pilot."

"I don't know Sarge, you seemed to be aiming at the ship and just so happened to hit the Elite pilot by luck."

"With my experience there's no such thing as luck."

"That's a line from Star Wars sir."

"Aw shut up and let's move on." The two reds then headed across the bridge.

"Hey Sarge, if there's a bridge up here then why is there another inaccessible bridge below it?"

"For…hell I don't know Donut, that's a good question. Cortana, what do you think?" No reply. "Cortana?" Then there was a snoring noise, "What the? Is she sleeping?!"

"Man, I didn't know AI's could sleep."

"Wake up!" Sarge smacked his helmet, "Ouch!"

"Did you seriously intend to wake her up by smacking yourself in the head Sarge?"

"Shut up Donut. Cortana! Wake up now!"

"Oh come on I was trying to sleep," the female A.I. complained.

"We need a way out of here now!"

"Alright, hold on…" Sarge and Donut stood around and waited, "Okay, there are survivors a few clicks east of our position."

"Clicks? What are clicks?"

"Uh…just don't worry about it Donut."

"But shouldn't we know how far we have to go to get to our destination."

"Just head east…and keep going until you find marines. It's that simple Donut."

"But how do we even know which way east is? We're in a completely different solar system, maybe east is north, and south is east!"

"Donut shut up! Cortana is perfectly capable of giving me migraines now that she's in my head! So either shut up, or I'll let you carry Cortana for awhile."

"I'm just trying to help Sarge."

"Then shut up Grif! Er, I mean Donut." The two reds continued on through the valley until a shot was fired over Sarge's head. "Take cover!!" Sarge looked over and saw Donut already cowering in fear. "You damn baby." More shots were fired and Sarge dove for cover. "Donut, provide cover fire!"

"Why should I sir? You're in a pretty safe place, I mean I don't think they'd get to you anytime soon and you could fire back and kill a lot of them yourself."

"Now where's the fun in that Donut?"

"Who cares about fun, we just need to get off this thing alive!"

"Oh alright fine." Sarge stood up and started firing as Donut ran to a better position.

"Hey Sarge, why haven't we radioed Grif and Simmons to find out where they're at?" the A.I. asked. "I mean don't you at all care about your team?"

"In case if you didn't notice: I hate Grif. I'd like to see him dead in the most humiliating way possible! Like being killed by a Grunt with a crowbar! Or a tassel, or a pixie-stick."

"Well it's nice to see that your team is so close," Cortanta sighed as she shook her virtual head.

Elsewhere Simmons and Grif as well as a few marines slowly exited the escape pod.

"Where are we?"

"Well Grif it looks like we're on that ring structure that the Autumn was about to crash on."

"Okay…so then let me rephrase that, what the hell are we on?"

"I just told you…some kind of giant ring structure."

"Okay…what the fuck is it called?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Sirs," both reds looked at the one marine who approached them. "Should we move on or set up a defensive position?"

"I vote for getting the fuck out of here."

"Shut up Grif. We don't even know how many Covenant soldiers are outside of this box canyon. Those rocks up there should provide for a good defensive position until help arrives."

"We'll set up sir." The marine saluted and ran off into the rocks.

"So what happens if help doesn't show up Simmons? What then?"

"Okay how's this: if no one shows up then we'll move on."

"How soon? Don't forget that we're depending on Sarge and Donut to find and save us." Simmons went silent. "So are we still staying here?"

"I'll give them two hours, then we'll move out."

Back with Sarge and Donut, the two of them had just helped a large group of marines survive a Covenant ambush. "Now that's what I call a successful ass kicking! A cataclysmic and a good ol' battle man to uh…alien…" A Pelican drop ship lowered down slowly and dropped a Warthog. "Donut, mount up!"

"Yes sir!" Donut hopped up into the gunner's turret. "Let's roll sir."

"Roger!" Sarge floored down on the gas reaching high speeds. The jeep flew over hills, and Sarge handled every curve better than most NASCAR drivers.

"WOOO!!!" Donut started firing the turret at nothing.

"Donut! Stop that! I can't drive with bullet shells flying in my face!"

"Sorry sir! I didn't know that was the fire button."

"Well what else would it be? The 'shoot ice cream and cherries' trigger?"

"That would be AWESOME." The reds made their way to the other side of the valley, but then Sarge pulled over. "Why are we stopping sir?"

"I have to take a leak Donut. Watch the Warthog until I come back."

"Roger." Sarge ran off behind the nearest tree. Donut walked to the edge of some deep canyon, "Holy cow!" Sarge peaked around the side of the tree to see what Donut was talking about.

"What's all this business?"

"This cave…it wasn't naturally made. It's artificially made," Cortana pointed out.

"Well no shit. Donut, you get to hold Cortana in your head now." Sarge pulled Cortana from his head and handed the chip to Donut.

"Where do I insert her sir?"

"Where you usually insert things Donut."

"Uh…"

"Never mind. Put the chip in the area it says 'insert here'."

"Uh…"

"On your helmet Donut."

"Oh…my helmet. Okay." Donut stalled.

"What now?"

"How do I know where to insert things when I can't read what's on my helmet?" Sarge growled, snatched Cortana and inserted her into Donut's helmet rather violently.

"Took you long enough," Cortana snapped. "It's fucking cold outside of a helmet."

"Sorry Cortana. Sarge wasn't giving me the greatest of information of how to insert you. I'm not use to inserting women."

"I'm sure you're not. Now let's move on." Sarge and Donut reentered the Warthog and drove through the tunnel. After a semi-long drive they entered a large room filled with Covenant forces.

"Donut! Open fire now!"

"Yes sir! WAAA!!!!" Donut unleashed a rain of bullets upon the Grunts and Elites, mowing them down one by one. "Is it just me, or is this too easy?"

"I don't know Donut," Sarge said as he ran over a dead Grunt's head, "but it sure is fun." After everyone in the room was dead the two headed to the right of the large room and found a small hallway going up. "Huh…who should go first?"

"I think you should Sarge."

"Normally I would. If I had better weapons then you. Unfortunately I don't, but I'm still higher in command so you go first Donut!"

"That's a good point Sarge. And I would go up if I wasn't holding Cortana right now."

"Alright then give her back."

"No take backs sir."

"God damn it!" Sarge slowly made his way up the hallway and ran around the corner. "Son of a bitch! Come on you bastard!" Several bullet and plasma shots went off and then several punches and other physical blows were heard. Then there was nothing but silence.

"Sarge? Are you there?" Then an Elite slowly walked around the corner. "OH SHIT!!" But then the Elite fell to the ground with a knife in its back.

"HAHA!! Take that you fellow red alien. Don't mess with red humans!"

"Since when did you have a knife Sarge?"

"It was his actually. Clearly he took that knife from a human he defeated, so I took it back and used it to kill it! Rest in peace whoever you were…rest in peace."

"Actually sir…this looks like an alien knife."

"Either way I killed it, and that's all that matters." Sarge and Donut proceeded onward and flipped a switch that activated a laser bridge. "Uh…Donut…?"

"Cortana…?"

"Don't ask me. I don't know shit about what's going on."

"What'd she say Donut?"

"She says she doesn't know Sarge."

"Well what kind of intelligence are you!?"

"Hey, whoever said I was smart sir?"

"Not you Donut, I meant Cortana."

"Oh, now it makes sense."

"Come on, let's go." The two rode up in the Warthog up to the edge where the laser bridge started and stopped.

"What's wrong now?"

"How do we know this thing is sturdy?"

"Well sir why would they make a bridge if it's not sturdy?" the pink Spartan questioned.

"Hm…we need to give it some sort of test…Donut! Get some dead bodies and bring them over here!"

"Yes sir." Donut ran off. He came back later on with a Grunt's body and he threw it on the laser bridge. The Grunt's body stayed on the bridge perfectly as if he were on an actual surface. "Looks sturdy sir."

"Well that's just a Grunt's body. We need something heavier. Get a dead marine's corpse!"

"But sir, there are no dead humans around here!"

"Then go back to that camp and bring one of them back!"

"Can we take the Warthog?"

"Of course not! Now get goin' Donut!"

"Alright sir." Donut came back about half an hour later dragging a dead marine's corpse. "Here we go," Donut threw the body on the bridge next to the Grunt. "It works Sarge. Can we go now?"

"Hm…just a few more tests…Donut, get the Elite's body!"

"Couldn't I have just done that instead of dragging a human all the way back here?"

"No idiot. We have to go in order. Now get that alien carcass!"

"Yes sir." Donut ran off again and came back with the dead Elite's body. He threw the carcass on the bridge and the result stayed the same. "It works sir."

"So it seems…Donut!"

"What now?!"

"I need you to stand on that bridge!"

"With all due respect Sarge, I don't weigh as much as you. I'm on this awesome diet!"

"You mean that tofu shit?"

"Nope."

"The only drinking and eating exotic fruits?"

"No, that was just to try new stuff."

"Eating foods that could possibly give you cancer?"

"No, that was for fun to see if those rumors were true."

"Alright I give up. What's the new one?"

"I eat foods high in fat, low on fiber, and I drink nothing but bacon grease. Now doesn't that sound like a sure proof plan to lose weight?"

"Yeah, right painfully out of your ass. Now let's get moving!" Sarge mounted up in the jeep as did Donut.

"Did he forget about using you to see if the bridge would hold?" Cortana asked.

"I don't know. I just wanted to move on before he made me drag an escape pod down here."

Back with Grif and Simmons.

"Okay Simmons, it's been two hours already. We need to get the fuck out of here."

"Hold on, I'm trying to reach Sarge now. Hello, Sarge, Sarge come in. Do you read me Sarge? This is Simmons over."

"Hello? Is that you Simmons?"

"Yes Sarge this is Simmons over. Grif and I and some survivors are alive and we're hiding in some box canyon in the middle of nowhere…and there are some big rocks for cover."

"Roger that Simmons. According to Cortana there are two other areas with survivors. We'll rescue them first and then we'll head your way. I'd show up sooner but I kinda want Grif to die still."

"What if I killed him sir? Then would you show up sir?"

"Simmons we're almost at the first base. I'll have to let you go now."

"Hello? Sarge, Sarge?! God damn it!"

"Hey Simmons, why don't we just go to one of the camps with survivors that's closer, so then we could get the hell out of here faster?"

"Hm…that's a good point Grif…but who knows, Sarge may decide to save us sooner." Two hours later.

"Okay seriously, where the fuck are they at!? Are they taking a coffee break?! Where the hell are they going to find a Starbucks on this fucking planet?!"

"Ring," Simmons corrected.

"WHAT THE FUCK EVER!!! JUST GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!! Hey…what the fuck is that thing?" Simmons looked to the sky to see two Covenant drop ships.

"OH SHIT!! Take cover!" The marines and Spartans ran in the rocks for cover.

Meanwhile, Sarge and Donut were sitting in the jeep, Sarge in the driver's side and Donut in the passenger's side. Around the vehicle were dozens of dead Grunts, Elites, and Jackal corpses either with holes in their bodies from the turret, or tire tracks all over their bodies from Sarge running them over multiple times with the jeep.

"Hey Sarge you said there were the camps of survivors right?" the pink Spartan finally spoke.

"Yeah that's right."

"Well we've already saved two…so why haven't we helped Grif and Simmons."

"Oh come on Donut, it's only been a few hours. Either they're all insane or they're all dead."

"Can't we just check to make sure?"

"Oh alright fine." Sarge hit the gas and headed off to where Grif and Simmons were at. There were dozens of Covenant soldiers blasting up towards a large number of rocks and throwing grenades at the pinned marines. "See they're perfectly fine Donut."

"Are you kidding?! They're pinned back behind those rocks and they're outnumbered two to one!"

"No they're not. Besides Grif's lazy, he'll probably die first as a Covenant sex slave for Jackals. And Simmons will probably kiss so much alien ass that he'll get moved up to a sex slave for Elites."

"Sir we have to help them!"

"Oh alright. I'm telling ya though they'll be fine. Well not Grif. He's probably bad a sex just like everything else in life." Sarge and Donut mounted up and drove at top speed towards the enemy.

"Blarg, blarg honk!!" Subtitles: "Die you filthy humans!"

"Honk, honk, blarg, honkedy honk?" Subtitles: "Does anyone else hear that?"

"Squeal?" Subtitles: "Hear what?"

"Honk blarg, blarg honk." Subtitles: "That."

"Honk, honk, honk blarg." Subtitles: "Yeah I hear it now too."

"What is that?" The Covenant looked at the English speaking Elite. "…Uh…I mean; honk?"

"BLARG HONK, HONK BLARG!?" Subtitles: "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT MUSIC!?" Suddenly Sarge and Donut's jeep jumped through the air and landed on several Covenant soldiers.

"Donut! Fire already!"

"Yes sir! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!" The bullets Donut fire cut down the remaining Covenant soldiers as Sarge ran down the ones that got away.

"Haha, how's that for a rescue mission!?" Just then, Simmons, Grif, and a handful of marines came out of the rocks, staring at their saviors.

"Very good work sir. These marines and I owe you our lives," Simmons stated.

"What about me?"

"Who cares about you? Sarge is just going to kill you soon anyway. No sense in mourning over what's going to die eventually."

"Is that what you said whenever your dog got ran over in the street when you were ten?"

"I told you that in trust!" Simmons said tearfully.

"Alright enough. Echo 419 we've got the last survivors, we need evac on the double!"

"This is Echo 419, roger that I'll be there shortly."

"Hey Sarge, how short is shortly?" Suddenly a ship came down at breakneck speeds and cracked Donut right in the head, throwing him out of the warthog.

"Oops, need to slow down the landing a bit don't I?" Echo 419 said over the raido.

"Uh…ow…ouchie…owie…"

"Grif, get Donut and put him in the ship. Everyone else, just head straight into the ship."

"What's our next mission Sarge?" Grif asked as he lifted Donut up.

"To rescue the captain."

"Where's he at?"

"On board of a Covenant cruiser of course."

"Fuck that, I'm staying in this fucking box canyon."

"Grif how long do you think you could stay here without losing your insanity?" Simmons questioned. "You almost lost it even with company."

"I'm not boarding some fucking giant ass ship with Covenant pouring out of the engine to rescue one person. That's fucking crazy."

"Sometimes you have to be a little crazy. Now Grif, take Cortana out of Donut's head and put her inside your head."

"Fine…whatever." Grif took the chip out of Donut's head and inserted Cortana into his. "Hey wait, if I have Cortana does that mean I have to do any work?"

"Of course you do! How else would you die?!"

"I could poison his food sir."

"Nah, we need something more original. Don't worry Grif, you'll be dead before the week is out."

"If we're invading a Covenant ship, I'll be dead within the hour sir."

"Even better! Come on men! Let's go find the captain!" Sarge immediately boarded the Pelican, followed by the marines and then Simmons.

"God damn it," Grif muttered as he dragged Donut by his arm, then awkwardly hurled him into the ship. "Well, let's just hurry up and get this over with." Grif stepped into the ship as the doors closed behind him, and then took off into the sky.

* * *

So obviously each level in Halo is going to be a chapter. Total number of chapters: 10. Simple no? So yeah, next chapter I'll work on so yeah, hopefully you enjoyed this one and adios.


	3. Truth and a Big Word

So yeah, this is the new chapter about one of the hardest levels known to Legendary. And now the red team has to save the captain…enjoy!

* * *

"The captain should be on that ship," Sarge screamed to the soldiers onboard the ship.

"Well how do you expect us to get in there? The Covenant won't just let us walk in the front door right?" a marine joked.

"There's a gravity lift under the ship, that's our ticket in!" Sarge said.

"Oh great," Grif whined.

"Hit it marines, go, go, go! The corps ain't paying you by the hour!"

"We get paid?!" Sarge booted Grif out of the ship causing him to do a face plant in the dirt.

"Alright men," Sarge began as he loaded his sniper rifle, "let's hunt!!" Sarge and Simmons moved up followed by Donut and Grif, and all of them had sniper rifles with them.

"No one make a sound. Wait for one of the reds to make a shot." The reds zoomed in on the valley where many Covenant troops patrolled.

"Why can't I see a fucking thing?"

"Turn your night vision on Grif," Simmons replied

"Oh…I knew that."

"Donut for the last time; a sniper rifle does not belong there," Sarge said.

"But you always threaten to stick your shotgun up Grif's ass and blow his brains out."

"Do what?!" Grif asked in a panic.

"That's me threatening to kill him, not to initiate foreplay!"

"Well tell me this sooner!"

"Oh the hell with it, just start shootin Grif!" Sarge shouted. Without a second thought Simmons fired at Grif's head, barely missing him. "God damn it Simmons! Now you've ruined our cover and we have no human meat to give those Covenant bastards," then plasma fire zipped all around Sarge, "while we make our escape!"

"Sir, wasn't that your zombie plan sir?" Simmons asked while hiding behind a rock for cover.

"Initially yes, but that's what you're for Simmons: to be Grif's replacement when he dies before you." Sarge was still standing in plain sight, but not getting hit.

"Hey Sarge, don't you think you should be taking cover?" the lazy Spartan asked.

"Huh? Why would I do something like that?" Sarge turned to the Covenant soldiers who were shooting at him. Two elites were charging their position as Sarge steadied his sniper rifle. He shot the elite right in the head, splattering its brains everywhere. The second elite stopped dead in its tracks, looked at its dead partner then ran for its life. "Huh, that was weird." The Sarge was shot by a plasma shot from a grunt. "OUCH! Who did that?!"

"Well maybe if you took cover instead of standing in plain view then you wouldn't get shot Sarge," Grif said. Sarge turned to Grif and shot a bullet right by the side of his helmet. "Or stand there, whichever you prefer sir."

"Alright you Covenant bastards," Sarge began as he reloaded his sniper rifle. "Time ta die!" Sarge let out a battle cry as he charged straight into the battlefield.

"Sir no! It's too dangerous!" Simmons ran after Sarge who was already firing and blowing Covenant soldiers up. The sound of a major battle involving several different gunshots, explosions, screams, juicy crunches, and blood flying everywhere filled the canyon.

A nearby marine turned to Grif, "Aren't you going to help them sir?"

"Are you crazy? There are way too many Covenant soldiers out there. I'm gonna wait until most of them are dead then head out there and maybe pick of a Grunt or something."

"What about you Donut sir?"

"I'm sorry but I just ate twenty minutes ago and I can't fight for at least twenty two minutes."

"That seems rather convenient," the marine pointed out as more gunfire then an explosion.

"Well you're not on my diet so you wouldn't know. So face."

"!!!" The marines and the Spartans looked up and saw Simmons flying overhead. "OOF!" Simmons landed back with the others with his armor scratched, dirty and completely screwed up. "Ohhhhhhh," Simmons groaned slowly getting up. "What hit me?"

"I'm guessing an explosion from Sarge's grenade shoved up your ass. What were you doing out there?"

"Well I went out there to stop him, then I ended up backing him up…and then things went black…and then I was flying through the air, and now I'm here."

"Wow, so you didn't kill anything?" Grif asked.

"Uh…"

"And finishing off enemies that Sarge beat the shit out of doesn't count."

"Then no." One final explosion boomed out and then there was absolute silence. "I wonder what happened?"

"Let's move men! The captain awaits!" The rest of the squad moved up to a blood covered Sarge reloading his sniper rifle with a Grunt's dismembered head lying at his feet.

"Wow Sarge, I had no idea you were so capable of killing so many enemies like that," Donut exclaimed in amazement.

"Well that's nothin. You should see my ways to kill Grif! Now there are some creative murdering techniques."

"Can we just move on and rescue the captain already," Cortana shouted within Grif's head.

"You wanna try telling that to Sarge? Oh wait, you can't because you're not in his head, and you're in my head."

"Yeah this isn't the first time someone has been inside you I bet," Cortana muttered hatefully. "Just get a move on, we have to save the captain."

"Sheesh, I think you've got a hard-on for the captain."

"That's it!" A loud, ear piercing screech went off in Grif's helmet right into his ears. The orange Spartan screamed with pain, then fell to his feet, clutching the sides of his helmet.

"Make it stop, make it stop!"

"Sarge, I think Grif is in pain," Donut pointed out.

"Sweet omnipotent opportunity," Sarge screamed. The red leader punted the Grunt head, having it land with a sickening, bloody, smack on Grif's writhing body. "Save some for me!" Sarge ran over to Grif, spun his sniper rifle around and began using it as a club to wail on him.

"OW, FUCK, STOP IT!! DAMN IT, FUCK!!" After a few moments of savage beating, Sarge finally grew tired and stopped his relentless clubbing.

"Is he dead yet," Sarge asked Simmons.

"Um…no sir, Grif is still alive."

"Damn, remind me to shoot him a couple of times before I beat the crap out of Grif."

"Can do sir," Simmons replied.

"Donut, get Cortana out of Grif and carry her again," Sarge ordered.

"Yes sir." Donut pulled Cortana out of Grif's helmet then placed her within his own helmet again. "Are you okay Cortana?"

"Yeah, I was just inside the body of someone who just got the crap beaten out of him, and most of those blows were directed at the head where I'm at. I'm just fucking peachy."

"I'm sorry, Sarge just likes beating up on Grif sometimes you know. I don't think he knows that holographic ladies can feel pain."

"Well tell him that they can," Cortana snapped.

"Hey Sarge, Cortana can feel pain whenever you beat on Grif," Donut stated.

"She can? Donut, why didn't you report this earlier?"

"Because I just got her inside of me a few moments ago and she told me just now."

"Awe hell, I'll let this one slide because I'm in a good mood. I slaughtered a whole mess of Covenant forces, and I got to beat up Grif! Today is shaping up to be a good day."

"AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS WE NEED TO SAVE THE CAPTAIN AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN MOVED FIVE FEET!?" Donut stumbled to the side from the loud screaming of an angry A.I. woman.

"Alright now…what were we here to do again?"

"Please someone kill me…"

"Rescue the captain sir," Simmons answered. Cortana sighed within Donut's head, wishing greatly for her death or capture.

"Right, let's go men! We're gonna rescue the captain even if it kills Grif!" The reds took point while the marines followed behind and Grif crawled very slowly behind.

A few moments of running through the canyon and the human forces soon found themselves walking into a circular opening filled with Covenant forces and turrets. The group was pinned down behind a wall and nothing in front of them but a straight drop that could kill anyone, while plasma burned into their cover.

"Sir, I think we've walked straight into an ass-fucking," one of the marines shouted to Sarge.

"Nonsense, we've just got to think of a strategy!" Just then, five Banshee fighters came flying in on the other side of the marines' cover.

"Oh man, we're screwed," another marine shouted.

"Open fire on the Banshees," Sarge shouted. "Leave the one on the far right alone though! I've got an idea that just might work!" Without warning, Sarge ran out from cover, towards the right as four Spartans and the squad of marines opened fire upon all of the Banshees. "YOU IDIOTS! FOCUS ON ONE AT A TIME!"

"Roger sir," Simmons replied. The humans and Spartans all shot one Banshee at a time, destroying one in a matter of short seconds before moving onto the next one. "This is working, keep it up!"

Sarge meanwhile was running out into the open, getting shot at from two different ends as a single Banshee flew towards him while shooting. The red leader then threw a grenade at his feet and jumped just before it exploded. Sarge then skyrocketed in the air, coming up in front of the Banshee.

"Special delivery," Sarge shouted as he punched a hole through the front of the purple ship. The fist narrowly missed the Elite pilot's head and the alien continued flying the ship. "Haha, victory is mine!" The Elite growled before biting Sarge's arm. "YOW! Why you!" Sarge grabbed the alien's head and began beating it against the side of the ship. The Elite screamed in pain as he tried to fend of Sarge's arm with his own arm. "Come here, hold still you little, OW! That is not a snack you split lipped bastard!" Sarge pulled his arm out a little, then shot if forward, punching the Elite in the face. The alien roared and grabbed Sarge's arm, and pulled forward violently, causing Sarge to crack his head on the hull of the ship. "OUCH! Alright enough!" Sarge placed his legs on the wings of the Banshee and pulled his other arm, which he was using to hold on, and sent it through the hull of the fighter as well. Sarge used his two arms to grab the Elite's throat, and began squeezing. "On the count of three," Sarge told himself. "THREE!" With one, powerful pull, Sarge yanked the Elite through the front of the Banshee and threw the tall alien to his doom. "Haha, suck it!" The Banshee then began to rapidly descend, unable to operate without a pilot, "Uh oh!" Sarge quickly crawled through the now oversized hole in the Banshee and positioned himself to pilot the fighter ship. "Haha, time to have a taste of your own medicine Covenant bastards!"

As the squad on the ground finished killing the last Banshee, now they had to worry about were the several squads of Covenant still firing at them. "Okay what do we do now," Grif asked with an angry tone.

"Donut, Sarge is in the last Banshee," Cortana informed. "Don't shoot the Banshee, and tell the others."

"Guys, Sarge is in the last Banshee so we can't shoot it," Donut repeated.

"Roger," a marine replied.

"Blarg!" Subtitles: "DIE YOU HUMAN MOTHER FUCKERS DIE!!!"

"Squeak, squeal!" Subtitles: "Let's try to move around these bastards!"

"Honk, blarg?" Subtitles: "Do you hear something?" The aliens looked up, seeing a Banshee with a giant hole in the front coming at them.

"Screech," a jackal muttered. Subtitles: "Fuck me…" The Banshee unloaded its rapid fire plasma cannons, burning holes through a few Covenant.

"HOOOOOOOOONK!!" Subtitles: "CHEESE IT!!"

"Haha ya smelly aliens! Suck hot plasma! Hey, what's this button do?" Sarge pressed the button in question. A shot that shook the Banshee was released, sending a large ball of green which exploded, taking out several of the fleeing Covenant. "Holy crap! I've got to remember to use this on Grif!"

"BLARG HONK!!" Subtitles: "OPEN FIRE!"

The Covenant forces turned and began firing at Sarge's Banshee. "Holy flying firing fuck!" Sarge took evasive action, pulling up away from the Covenant fire.

"Squeak, squeak, squeal!" Subtitles: "WE'VE WON!!"

A bullet went through that Grunt's skull, taking the Covenant by surprise. The remaining forces turn in shock to see three Spartans and a squad of marines charging with guns blazing. The surprise attack allowed the human forces to take out a large number of the remaining Covenant while others fled for their lives. Sarge circled back around and shot the runners with hot plasma that burned through their skin and killed the aliens.

"We're winning," Grif shouted with shock in his tone.

"Keep pushing them back," a marine shouted.

"We got a Covenant drop ship coming in," Cortana shouted in Donut's head.

"Uh oh," the pink Spartan said as he turned his head around. Sure enough, a drop ship was coming towards them, its turret blasting. "Drop ship, take cover!" The marines and Spartans took cover as the drop ship came in for a landing. Sarge's Banshee flew towards the drop ship at full speed.

"Hey Covenant, I was just thinking about returnin your Banshee! Here ya go!" Sarge jumped out at the last second as the Banshee crashed through the cockpit of the drop ship, causing it to explode, and the pilots were consumed by the flames. The massive ship spun around before crashing and exploding into a cliff wall before falling off, down into the canyon in a massive heap of flaming metal. Sarge hit the ground with a painful smack. His energy shield took the brunt of the impact, but Sarge was still hurting.

"Sarge," Simmons shrieked as he ran to his leader. Everyone else walked towards the red leader slowly, all with expressions of shock. "Are you okay sir?" Surprisingly, Sarge threw his head back and laughed uncontrollably.

"I've never felt better! Granted my shields are down, I probably sprained my ankle, and I may or may not have a concussion, but that was one of the highlights of my life. Second only to whenever I see Grif die."

"Sir, granted you threatened me, but that was badass," Grif admitted.

"Can we stop fucking each other and keep moving," Cortana asked. "Odds are that you blowing that ship to shit would've alerted the entire cruiser. They'll be scouting in force."

"Well it's a good thing that the grav-lift is right over this ridge," Sarge stated, pointing to the nearest ridge. "We go there, get into the ship, save the captain, call it a day." Sarge slowly stood up and walked towards through the gory, singed, and flaming opening towards the grav-lift. The rest of the group followed.

Once the gravity lift was in sight, they realized that it was heavily guarded by a squad of Grunts, Jackals, and turrets. As if that wasn't enough, two more squads consisting of Grunts and one Elite leader each dropped down from the ship. "Odds are they're scouting parties," Simmons pointed out. "Plan of action?"

"HEY COVENANT!!" the red leader shouted. Every single alien in the canyon turned to Sarge who now stood in the open. "You remember that drop ship full of your Covenant buddies that was destroyed a second ago? That was me! That's right, a bad ass human destroyed one of your ships full of your little buddies! Come get me ya slimy bastards!" Sarge unloaded a shot from his sniper rifle. The bullet cut through a Grunt's skull and through an Elite's stomach, hitting the stone wall behind it. The Grunt's headless carcass fell over, blue blood spewing from its head while the Elite toppled over in pain, holding his wound.

"HONK HONK!" Subtitles: "DESTROY THEM!!" The Grunts and Jackals ran towards the humans.

"UNLEASH HELL BOYS!!" Subtitles: "HONK, HONK, BLARG, HONK!!"

The marines and Spartans began unloading bullets into the advancing battalion of Covenant, quickly cutting down the first wave of Grunts and Jackals. The remaining forces took cover behind nearby rocks and fired back at the humans. The squads that dropped in from the ship advanced as well, but took more caution from their Elite leader who threw a grenade at the humans' cover. The grenade landed in front of their cover, exploding harmlessly in front of the rocks.

"Damn it Sarge, why couldn't we think of a well thought out plan that didn't involve being suicidal?!"

"I've got to agree with the yellow one," a British marine shouted as he pressed his back against the stone.

"I'M FUCKING ORANGE YOU DOUCHE!!"

"Shut up and shoot," Sarge barked. The red leader stood up and hurled a frag grenade behind a rock with two Grunts and a Jackal. The grenade exploded, sending a wave of gore out from behind the rock. Sarge crouched back down. "How many grenades do we have?"

"Each of us has four," Simmons answered, referring to the red team.

"We all have at least one," the British marine added.

"Good, we're gonna bombard those alien bastards on my mark! Pull your grenades out boys!" Each Spartan and human pulled out their grenades. "Three…" everyone pulled their pins and held on for dear life. "Two one THROW!" Several arms went up and released over a dozen grenades into the air. The Covenant aliens saw the grenades then all ran backwards. The grenades landed all around the Covenant forces and exploded one after another, killing or fatally wounding most of the Covenant. The Elite commander stumbled forward from a grenade exploding at his side.

"Honk, honk, blarg!" Subtitles: "Drop in our heavy forces!"

Sarge stood up, aiming his sniper at the back of the Elite's head. "Hey split lip!" The alien in question veered around, his eyes widening with fear. "BLAMO!!" Sarge pulled the trigger, releasing a sniper round through the Elite's skull, splattering its skull and brains around its feet. "Let's get to that grav-lift!" Sarge took point, running past the smoking craters and body parts as his team followed. Suddenly, something else was coming down the gravity lift, prompting the humans and Spartans to stop. "Uh…fall back!" Two heavily armored monsters landed side by side.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE THINGS," Grif shouted. The monsters' cannons glowed right before releasing a large ball of green which exploded next to Grif, sending the Spartan flying through the air.

"Hunters, fall back," Sarge shouted as he unloaded another shot from his sniper rifle into the one of the Hunters' armor. The bullet bounced off harmlessly as the marines began fleeing. Eventually, the group found themselves back in the former cover.

"Shit, what're we gonna do," a panicked marine questioned.

"I have a plan, Grif!" There was no response.

"Sir, Grif is still out there," Simmons replied.

"Good," Sarge stated. "Simmons, Donut, start climbing these stone walls. Marines, find some cover so you won't be in my way!" The marines and Spartans did as instructed, the latter with more trouble.

The Hunters slowly approached Grif who was gradually coming to. One of the Hunters stepped on an injured and barely alive Grunt, crushing its body like a fruit. The Hunter aimed its cannon at Grif and charged it up. Suddenly, a bullet tore through the Hunter's back like wet paper. The Hunter groaned then fell forward, slamming its heavy body on Grif's back.

"URG!! WHAT THE FUCK!?" The other Hunter turned to Sarge who flipped it off before running further back. The Hunter gave chase into the narrow alley of stone and rock.

"Now boys!" The Hunter looked around just as Donut and Simmons dropped from above and landed, Simmons on the front and Donut landing on its back.

"It's a Hunter sandwich," Donut said with a nasty tone.

"Kill this thing Donut," Simmons ordered as he pulled out a pistol. The Hunter thrashed around, screaming in rage, trying to throw the Spartans off. Donut pulled his fist back and punched the back, soft orange neck of the Hunter. The giant beast roared weakly, thrashing around weakly now. Simmons pressed the barrel of the pistol into the Hunter's stomach, then pulled the trigger, killing the monster instantly. The Hunter fell over on its side as Donut and Simmons landed safely, watching the ton of armor fall to the ground.

"Good work boys, now let's go get the captain," Sarge ordered as he ran full speed ahead. Grif finally pushed the Hunter off, following his squad and the marines. Everyone stood on the gravity lift and were slowly pulled up to the ship. Once inside, they were in an empty room. Everyone scanned carefully and no doors could be opened.

"This ain't right," one marine said anxiously. "This ain't right ma-AH!" Everyone turned to where the marine was standing, but saw nothing. Another brief yelp of fear was heard, causing everyone to turn around once again.

"What's going on," Grif shouted in a shrill voice. Suddenly, two floating plasma swords came charging forward, cutting down marines with no effort whatsoever. "HOLY FUCK!!" Grif and Simmons began firing while moving back, and Sarge charged forward, his assault rifle blazing. Donut stood in one spot while shooting as one of the invisible Elites came charging at him. The sword raised high into the air then came down swiftly. Donut caught the Elite's wrist, flipped it over on its back with a loud, thud. Donut placed his boot on the Elite's sword, his rifle then aimed at the body before he started shooting. Purple blood sprayed out as the Elite slowly came into visibility. "What the hell, Donut did that?"

"Fuck, that's impressive." Sarge charged towards the last Elite, smacking it in its invisible face with the butt of his gun. The Elite fell on its back with a painful smack. Sarge then raised his armored boot into the air then sent it crashing down, crushing the Elite's skull underfoot. The reds looked around themselves, seeing all the marines were slaughtered by the invisible Elites.

"Well, no sense in mourning, let's keep going," Sarge ordered casually. The reds followed their leader into the ship. The four Spartans had to face wave after wave of Covenant forces within the ship, inspecting and searching anywhere and everywhere they could gain access to.

"What the fuck, all these halls seriously look the same," Grif whined.

"Yeah, I mean the Covenant should seriously consider hiring a professional decorator. You think they'd pay me if I helped with their ship layouts?"

"Donut, the Covenant hate humans and have already killed millions of humans and dozens of planets. I don't think they'd hire you to decorate their ships," Simmons finished.

"Yeah, I mean that'd by like a sin in the Covenant bible," Grif added jokingly.

"Can it boys," Sarge shouted. "I got a feeling we're close." The red team continued forward just as a door opened automatically, revealing a room in which the Covenant held their prisoners. Within the room were three red Elites and one golden Elite, minding their own business. "Hey Covenant!" The aliens all whipped their heads to the entrance, seeing four Spartans standing before them. "We got a special one time offer of immense and unbearable pain! And if you don't like that deal then we'll give you Grif to be your sex slave in exchange for the captain." The golden Elite ignited its sword then pointed it at the Spartans.

"Honk, honk, blarg!" Subtitles: "Kill them, and bring me the yellow one so we can make him our sex slave!" The three red Elites charged forward, shooting at the Spartans with their plasma rifles. The red team quickly moved behind the walls outside of the door for cover.

"What's the plan Sarge," Donut asked fearfully.

"You three take out the Elites while I take on the one with the sword!"

"Wow, that's got to be the first time you haven't sent me on a suicide mission Sarge," Grif stated astonishingly.

"Are you kidding!? The captain is watching this! If he's gonna promote anyone, it'll be the one who takes out that powerful golden Elite! Not get ta shooting!"

"Yes sir," the three reds shouted before coming around the corners, their assault rifles blazing. Sarge ran out last, running straight up the middle towards the sword wielding Elite.

Donut's shots contacted his alien opponent's shields as he advanced quicker than well lubricated lightning. The red Elite soon moved behind a nearby pillar for cover to let his shields recharge. Donut reloaded while running forward, coming around the corner and tackling the Elite to the ground. Both combatants' weapons were knocked out of reach. Unfortunately for the Elite, he had no idea that his opponent was a master of pinning even the strongest of foes once he was on top. Donut had both knees pressed against the Elite's forearms and slapped his hands together high above his head. The pink Spartan slammed his hands into the top of the Elite's head, smashing its skull between his solid fists and the steel floor below him.

"Awe man, it's going to take forever to get this brain fragments out of my gloves," Donut complained as he tried to shake the pieces of blood and brain matter off his hands.

Simmons charged his fearless Elite, both shooting at each other while advancing with no cover in sight. Simmons' gun clicked empty. Deciding he didn't want to reload, Simmons hurled his gun as straightly as an arrow at the Elite. The barrel of the gun pierced the Elite's stomach, causing it to stop and pull the gun out quickly. Simmons socked the alien in the side of the head with a knuckle sticking out to pierce a hole in the alien's skull. The massive beast dropped dead to the floor, blood oozing from its head and stomach.

Grif was thrown onto his back as the Elite charged at him, arm high in the air, ready to strike. Grif kicked his legs forward, extending them below the Elite's arms. The orange Spartan wrapped his legs tightly around the alien's upper body, then flipped backwards, throwing the Elite headfirst into the steel floor, breaking its neck on impact. Grif sighed as he quickly stood up, and noticed two strange looks from Simmons and Donut.

"What," Grif asked.

"Man, why didn't I think of using the scissors neck breaker," Donut complained.

Sarge unloaded a full clip into the resilient shield of the golden Elite before having to reload. The red leader threw the gun aside, pulling out a sniper rifle at close range and shot the Elite, destroying its shield. "Haha, no scope!" The golden Elite roared in rage before diving at Sarge, tackling the red leader to the ground. The Elite raised its sword above Sarge's head, ready to decapitate him. Sarge put his knees together, and then brought them up into the Elite's back, sending the alien rolling forward off of him. "Alright, let's play you slimy-," Shocking, the Elite recovered quickly and backhanded Sarge strongly enough to send the Spartan flying back a few feet. The golden Elite marched forward with his sword in hand. Sarge cupped his hands together before swinging upward, connecting to the Elite's face. The alien was lifted off of its hoofs before it fell painfully on its back. "As I was saying: you slimy, split lipped-," Once again Sarge was interrupted by the golden Elite kicking his feet out from under him. The Spartan landed on his side with a loud bang. The golden Elite got on top of Sarge with its sword once again raised above his head. "Awe, fuck it!" Sarge pulled the pin on a grenade then shoved it into the Elite's mouth. The golden alien dropped its sword in shock and unwillingly swallowed the grenade. A second passed before the Elite's throat and chest exploded outward in a shower of purple blood and organs.

"Ew," Grif shouted.

"Nasty," Donut added. Sarge stood up, attempting to wipe the blood off of his armor, but only smearing it horribly.

"Don't, get me some baby wipes," Sarge ordered.

"On it sir." Donut held out his forearm, and his armor dispensed a baby wipe which he pulled out and handed to Sarge.

"Deactivate the laser shields," Sarge shouted to Simmons.

"Yes sir," Simmons shouted before pressing a holographic button. The shields lowered as Sarge, Donut and Grif ran to the captain.

"Coming here was reckless," Keyes shouted. "You all should've known better than this…but thanks…"

"I was about to say, you're mad at us because we saved your ass," Grif muttered.

"Stow it Grif," Sarge shouted.

"While the Covenant had us locked up in here, I overheard the guards talking about this ring world. They call it Halo."

"One moment sir, accessing the Covenant battle-net," Cortana spoke.

"Wait, how'd you understand the guards," Grif asked.

"It's a device that goes in my ear that translates their language into English," Keyes answered. "You all have on two in your helmet." The reds looked at each other then back at the captain. "Oh for the love of-," Keyes walked up and flicked a tiny switch on their helmets one by one. "There, now the Covenant's language will be translated into English. Are you happy yet?"

"Not until I'm out of Sarge's command," Grif murmured.

"Now you see what I've had to deal with sir," Cortana's voice spoke again. "According to the data in their networks, the ring has some sort of deep religious significance. If I'm analyzing this correctly, then they believe that Halo is some kind of weapon, one with vast, unimaginable power."

"That's true," Keyes growled. "The Covenant kept saying that whoever controls Halo controls the fate of the universe."

"Now I see," Cortanta added. "I've intercepted a number of messages about a search team, scouting for a control room. I thought they were looking for the bridge of a cruiser I damaged during the battle above the ring. But they must be looking for Halo's control room."

"That's bad news," Keyes exclaimed.

"Understatement," Simmons muttered angrily.

"If Halo is a weapon, and the Covenant gain control of it, they'll use it against us and wipe out the entire human race. Red team, Cortana, I have a new mission for you."

"Great," Grif replied sarcastically. Sarge punched Grif in the back of the head, nearly knocking the red off his feet.

"We need to beat the Covenant to Halo's control room," Keyes continued.

"Oh that sounds safe," Grif added with a shaking voice. Sarge kicked Grif in the back, this time knocking him down on his front.

"We'll find this control room post-haste sir," Sarge replied quickly. "Then we'll use it to destroy the Covenant, every last snot-nosed race they have!"

"Right, we're counting on you guys," Keyes reminded as he picked up a Covenant needler.

The reds took point and had to shoot through a weak amount of Covenant resistance before the Spartans and the captain took their leave in a stolen Covenant drop ship.

* * *

So yeah, I got to Sarge highjacking a Banshee before I realized that at the rate I was going, I would have this chapter done by probably the end of the week lol, so that's why the ending seems sorta rushed. So for that I apologize. I do hope you enjoyed this chapter though.


	4. Silent But Deadly

Hey, this is just a new chapter, and since I have your attention (or not) I'd like to take this chance to promote a fan-fiction of mine. I realize the odds of someone being a fan of Halo fan-fics, and Teen Titans fan-fics is like a million to one, but no harm in trying. If you're a watcher of mine and I've already told you this, then just continue to the story. But yeah, go to my profile and there's a short summary kinda and etc. anywho you all probably want to read this story so here:

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Grif began, "We're going to storm an island filled with Covenant forces who have heavily fortified their positions and filled every dark corner of that island with infantry, and our plan is to invade this island, get into the very heart of it to find a map to the control room in which we have to find."

"That about sums it up," Simmons agreed over the radio.

"Okay," Grif replied casually before leaning back in the seat of a Pelican. Outside of the drop ship were three more Pelicans each carrying a Grizzly battle tank, a fleet of Hornets and two Vulture battleships. "This is gonna be easy!"

"Don't get excited yet Barbie," Sarge's gruff voice ordered over the radio. "According to Cortana, the Covenant have REALLY fortified their positions on the island. We're actually planning on attacking from two different sides of the island, and then send another wave of troops in behind one of us to throw the enemy off guard. Still, the purple intelligence says it won't be easy."

"Please, we've got two Vultures, like a dozen Hornets all with rocket mounted marines, and four Pelicans filled with marines. How is this going to be hard?!" Suddenly, the Pelican jerked to the side, throwing everyone inside off their seats. "What the hell was that!?"

"Anti-air Wraiths," the pilot shouted in response. What sounded like repeated muffled thumps could be heard from inside the ship as the Vultures unleashed a barrage of missiles. "That'll show em!" The explosions from the missiles could be heard from within the hull of the ship, and seemed to last for about half a minute. "We're going in, lock and load marines! What the-," An explosion of green engulfed the cockpit, obliterating the pilots and causing the Pelican to nosedive towards the ocean. Upon landing in the ocean, the Pelican immediately began sinking into the ocean.

"Oh my god Grif," Simmons shouted.

"No damn it no," Sarge screamed. "I didn't get to see the look on his face before he died damn it! Drop the Grizzly!"

"Sir, we're not on the island yet," the pilot replied, his tone incredibly high.

"Awe, is poor baby pilot afraid of a little rust! Drop the tank!"

"Dropping Grizzly unit," the pilot replied before pressing the drop button. The tank was unlatched, and hit the water with a large splash. The Pelican was now able to move much faster and evade more of the anti-air blasts directed at their ship.

"Tell the Vultures to unleash hell," Sarge screamed.

"Unleashing hell," one of the Vulture pilots replied calmly. Once again, a barrage of missiles shot out, exploding on the beach, decimating Covenant infantry and one of the many anti-air weapons that were set up.

"Haha ya smelly bastards," Sarge screamed. "Tell two Hornets to clear an LZ for us!"

"But sir, it's WAY too hot," the pilot shouted back.

"We don't need a red velvet carpet, we just need a safe place to jump out to kill some Covenant!" The pilot nodded and muttered some words into his radio. Two Hornets flew past the Pelican and starting shooting their automatic cannons while the marines standing on its sides blasted their rockets. Dirt and Covenant bodies flew through the air as a small LZ was cleared. "Any of you marines Helljumpers," Sarge asked as he pulled out a chain gun. The marines shook their heads. "Well you're about to find out what it's like to be one. Pilot, get ready to sling-shot us out of this bird!"

"Uh, c-can do sir!" The Pelican picked up speed while the marines stood up, clutching their guns fearfully.

"GET READY BOYS!!" The Pelican had reached close to maximum speed before the pilot hit the breaks and pulled the drop shit around, sending Sarge and the marines flying onto the sandy beach. Quickly, the Pelican moved to take off, before a hole was shot through it by an anti-air cannon, and then finished off by several fuel rod carrying Grunts. Sarge quickly got to his feet then unloaded bullets from his heavy machine gun, tearing through the Covenant forces nearby. "Haha, blamo!"

"Open fire marines," the corporal shouted. The marines quickly huddled closely together, shooting the infantry down while they could. However, the ground forces were quickly overwhelmed by the infantry alone. "We're dead, there's no way out!"

"Roll up the bear," Sarge shouted into his helmet radio. Suddenly, a large green tank with double mounted cannons rolled up onto the beach, blasting its way up. The Covenant quickly turned to the tank before being blown to bits. The ones who were smart ran for dear life as the tank continued forward. "Everyone around the tank and provide covering fire! That beast shouldn't have to worry about infantry!" Sarge ran as quickly as he could, carrying a heavy chaingun and all, while the marines ran behind him. They surrounded the sides and back of the tank, shooting down any clusters of infantry that tried to shoot the Grizzly. However, one well place fuel shot completely blew out the driver's portion of the tank. Now, the entire Grizzly was a good spot to hide while Covenant infantry closed in on them. "Vultures, bring hell, repeat bring hell!"

"Roger, we'll try not to hit you," the pilot responded.

"Well thank you very much private smart ass," Sarge shouted. The Vultures closed in, blasting the nearby infantry with their double cannons, which was more than enough to split the aliens in half. "Cortana, where's the fucking Cartographer?!"

"Analyzing," her voice stated calmly. "It's on the other side of this island, a little to the east, but the Covenant have activated some kind of security system on the ring that prevents us from accessing the Cartographer. If we're going to find out where the Control Room is, we've gotta shut down that security system first."

"Noted," Sarge replied before throwing his now empty chaingun to the floor. "Cortana, I need at least two Hornets to follow me and my squad while we shut down that security thingy!"

"Alright Sarge, I'll tell them, but they'll be moving ahead of you so pick your knees up when running and keep your head down."

"What the-that'd be the most awkward thing I've seen since Grif's band recital," Sarge shouted. Two Hornets suddenly flew over Sarge and his squad. "Let's move marines!" The Spartan and his squad ran down the beach, away from the action.

"We need a plan Donut," Simmons shouted while their Pelicans still flew back and forth, avoiding the anti-air blasts. Several Hornets had already been shot down, leaving only about four remaining with the two Spartans.

"Having those heavy air ships shooting the Covenant while we dodge isn't good enough," Donut replied fearfully. "Grif is dead and we just lost Sarge, there's nothing we can do! I mean come on, how often has the duo of Donut and Simmons been affective?!"

"You're right, just let the Vultures shoot the shit out of the beach."

"We have to drop someone," Simmons' pilot screamed. "We can't keep dodging forever!"

"Shit, you've gotta be kidding," Simmons shouted. The Pelican made evasive maneuvers as they flew towards the beach. However, the Pelican was shot down halfway, and flew into the water. Simmons quickly ran into the cockpit, unlatching the Grizzly while the marines stayed afloat. "Alright, we're going under and then coming back up in the Grizzly. Let's go!" The Spartan and the marines dove under the water and swam for the sinking tank.

Donut remained in his Pelican, swaying back and forth as his Pelican moved away from the Covenant blasts. "Man, now it's just me and Sarge. Well, at least we get shit done usually…" Suddenly, not one, but two Grizzly tanks that rolled onto the beach, immediately blasting into Covenant lines. "What the, Simmons, how're you controlling two tanks?!"

"It's me Donut," Grif's voice replied annoyingly over the radio. "I didn't fucking die in the crash. Although the marines did. My suit allows me to survive under water."

"Like a mermaid," Donut shouted with glee.

"Yeah…sure…"

"Oh Grif, you'd make such a pretty mermaid!"

"Donut, shut the fuck up and get down here with your Grizzly to blow these fuckers up," Simmons yelled over the radio.

"Roger Simmons, I think you'd make a pretty mermaid too."

"DONUT SHUT THE FUCK UP!!"

"Just drop down so he'll be quiet," Cortana muttered within Donut's head.

Elsewhere on the island, Sarge and his squad has pushed through into the security center of the island, only to find the door locked. "So we have to unlock a door…behind a locked door," a marine stated. "Well this is fucking great."

"Don't worry, I came prepared for just such an event," Sarge shouted. "Hornet pilots, start unloading like Donut unloads something in someone!"

"Too much disgusting information, roger," the pilots replied. The Covenant on the other side of the door were blown away by the explosions from the rockets. The doors flew out into pieces while fire and smoke filled the room inside.

"Boys, today is a good day to kill," Sarge shouted before charging into the room with his assault rifle blazing. The marines all looked at each other oddly before charging in after the Spartan, screaming and shooting into the smoke and fire. A fierce firefight broke out and there was yet again another explosion that nearly destroyed the entire room. "What the…" Another explosion went off, and another, and another. "Uh oh, they've booby-trapped this place! Everyone make a run for it!" The marines quickly ran towards the exit, screaming while a single Grunt ran behind them. Sarge pushed the Grunt down, then punted him back into the room. "Not you, stupid alien. Us." One final, cataclysmic explosion sent Sarge flying out of the doors, fire chasing him as he flailed around before landing painfully on the beach.

"Sir," a marine shouted. "Sir, are you okay sir!?"

"Yeow!" Sarge sat up quickly, his back in flames. "Lord, I don't mean to be picky, but why'd you blow me up like that and not Grif? I did nothing besides kill a bunch of aliens bent on destroying the human race. Is that really so wrong?"

"Sir, we need to head to the Cartographer," a marine screamed. "We've gotta hurry!"

"Alright, fine," Sarge groaned as he pushed himself up. "Let's go find us a map."

On the other side of the island, Grif and Simmons had finally eliminated the last remaining forces of Covenant resistance, leaving the beach covered in flames, smoke, blood, and all different types of carnage. "Hey guys, we're coming in for a landing," Donut's voice came in over the communicator. The Pelican drop ship moved in to land, but stopped suddenly. "Uh, actually Sarge has ordered that we move, so follow me guys!"

"What the fuck, is he gonna just stay in that fucking ship all day," Grif asked spitefully. "That's bullshit, let me get into that ship Donut!" Suddenly, a Covenant drop ship smashed through the Pelican, causing marines and Donut to fly out of the now flaming ship.

"!!! OOF!!" Donut slammed into the sandy ground and rolled forward seven times before coming to a dead stop.

"Uh…yeah fuck that," Grif replied quickly.

"Donut, are you okay," Simmons shouted into the radio. Donut groaned before slowly getting up. "Fuck it, he's fine. Donut, get into Grif's tank so we can keep moving!"

"Fuck that, he's not coming into my tank!"

"Why not Grif?"

"I don't want Donut in a tank which has a REALLY small pilot seat? I don't want that, I mean-,"

"Hey Grif," Donut said. The orange Spartan spun his head around, seeing Donut sitting in the seat behind him.

"Fuck," Grif muttered before taking point with his Grizzly.

The assault on the Cartographer had began with the marines in Sarge's squad being slaughtered and various burns across their bodies from the plasma shots. Sarge remained crouched behind a rock while Covenant from several feet higher up fired down upon him.

"Of all the times for so many people to have died under my command, GRIF IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT!! Oh right, he was shot down in the ocean…and I didn't get to see it. Damn…well I'll still get to kill him if I die today."

"BLARG HONK BLARG BLARG HONK!!" Subtitles: "He's behind the rocks!"

"Honk!" Subtitles: "No shit idiot…"

"Screech, squall, squall!" Subtitles: "Why do I have a shitty plasma pistol!? I mean why can't I have a long range weapon!?"

"Honk, honk, blarg!" Subtitles: "Shut up stupid little bird thing!"

"Squeak, squeal, SQUEAAAAAALL!!" Subtitles: "A GIANT BIRD THING!! WITH MISSILES!!" The Covenant looked up, seeing the two Vultures floating in the air. The Covenant ran to the side while the Vultures fired their repeating cannons, tearing some aliens apart while the rest successfully were out of range of the Vultures. Unfortunately for them, Grif and Simmons' Grizzly tanks rolled around the corner, letting loose with their double cannons.

"What the Sam-hell," Sarge asked himself as he stood up. Suddenly, a Hornet slowly descended down behind Sarge.

"Sir, I can get you up there quickly sir," a British marine shouted over the ship's engines.

"Good work soldier," Sarge screamed back before standing on the side of the ship. "You'd be an excellent replacement for Simmons-er I mean Grif." The Hornet lifted off the ground and towards the smoking, bloodied entrance to the Cartographer. Sarge stepped off the ship and onto an Elite that was torn in half and trying to crawl away. Sarge's thick boot crushed the alien's skull, putting it out of its misery. "Simmons, Donut get over here!" Simmons and Donut exited the Grizzly tanks, as did Grif. "Grif, you're alive?! How the, oh wait, you can swim. I forgot that that was your one ONLY good skill."

"Hey, I got shot down, entered a Grizzly underwater, drove up on a beach filled with Covenant infantry and tanks, blew all of them up, and I just saved your ass and you're trying to tell me that my only talent is swimming."

"The Cartographer is inside this building," Sarge told his men, ignoring Grif.

"You are such a douche," the orange Spartan continued.

"This whole place could be filled with Covenant forces! Some of us may not survive! Hopefully that some is only Grif. These marines in their big fancy, destructive ships and tanks will cover our rear, don't say anything Donut, while we look for the Cartographer!"

"Sir, we already know this," Simmons stated. "Why are you telling us what we already know?"

"I'm not sure, let's just hurry the fuck up," Sarge replied, turning and entering the building. The rest of the reds entered the building one by one, leaving the marines to guard the entrance. Suddenly, a massive plasma beam went through a Vulture, destroying it quickly.

"SHIT," one marine piloting a Hornet shouted as he flew to the side.

Ten minutes later, the reds made it through the compound with no Covenant resistance. "Am I the only one who finds it weird that there are like NO Covenant enemies inside of this place," Grif asked. "They couldn't get inside of this place that they needed?"

"Maybe they didn't think we'd get this far," Simmons guessed.

"HA! Stupid unprepared Covenant aliens. They didn't expect us to deliver a swift and painful ass kicking to their slimy rumps!"

"Uh…guys," Cortana muttered within their radios. "We're getting this message from above…"

"WE'RE GETTING OVERWHELMED!! We'll hold off the Covenant as long as we can!"

"Good job soldier, dying for the greater cause puts you above Grif's ranking!"

"Uh, Sarge, I don't think that means a whole lot to him seeing as how he's going to die within the next three minutes," Grif pointed out.

"Perhaps not, but at least I'll hold him in higher regard than I do for you!"

"That doesn't matter, I'm alive and he's dead, so technically I win." Sarge stopped then stood in front of the holographic Cartographer. "How the fuck is that thing a map!?"

"Cortana, can ya make heads or tails of this thing," Simmons questioned.

"Give me a minute, analyzing…" A minute later, the reds stood by, still waiting on Cortana to analyze the map.

"Can we move this along please?"

"Why, you got something you need to do Grif," Simmons asked.

"Yeah, fucking your mom."

"Can it," Sarge ordered angrily.

"Okay, if I'm understanding this map correctly, then the Control Room should be somewhere in this region," Cortana stated, as a red light blipped onto the hologram. "So all we need to do is…wait…am I reading this right?"

"Great, now she's losing her smartness," Grif murmured. "We're so going to get swarmed and then killed."

"Not all of us Grif, while Donut, Simmons, and I will die an honorable death, you will most likely be taken to the Covenant headquarters and raped until your brain becomes nothing more than jelly! And that's exactly why we need to plant a homing beacon within your ass so the humans can find and destroy any Covenant city that you could be taken to! Donut, you've got the tracer probe right?"

"Yes sir," Donut replied. "Do you want me to insert it now or later?"

"We're leaving," Cortana cut off. "Get moving you guys."

"You heard to lady, let's move out," Sarge shouted before charging back down the hall.

"He's going to get us killed isn't he," Donut asked.

"You just now realized that," Grif replied before sulking off after his superior officer. Simmons and then Donut followed their orange teammate down the hall.

The reds retraced their steps and soon found several squads of Covenant had came after them, and waited in almost every room to kill the reds, knowing the only way out was through them. This didn't stop the reds, mostly Sarge, from pushing through the hordes of aliens and closer to the exit. Finally, the reds got to the hall that led to the entrance.

"Finally, I'm ready to get the fuck out of here," Grif exclaimed as he ran ahead of the rest. The orange Spartan turned the corner ahead of his team. "HOLY FUCK!! OUCH!! EEH!! OH THE PAIN!!! IT HURTS!!" Grif was then hurled against the wall in a heap. The rest of the reds stopped and aimed their guns at the hall where Grif was thrown from. A golden Elite with an energy sword slowly came around the corner, and stared at the rest of the Spartans.

"Oh shit," Donut shouted. Without a word, Sarge ran forward and speared the Elite in the stomach, smacking its back against the wall. The Elite roared then slammed its fist into Sarge's back, then used the same hand to throw the red leader down the opposite end of the hall. Simmons and Donut opened fire on the Elite. The alien turned around then hurled a charged at the duo.

"Run Donut," Simmons shouted. The two reds turned and ran away from the rampaging Elite. The golden alien stopped then chuckled with amusement at their fear. Once the Elite turned around, Sarge's gun smacked into its face, causing it to stumble back.

"I'll take you on Malibu Barbie," Sarge mocked. "Mano, y alieno." The golden Elite gave a blank stare to Sarge.

"WHA-CHA," Donut screamed as he stabbed a knife into the Elite's shoulder.

"BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!!!" The golden Elite spun around, slamming the back of its hand into Donut's face, throwing him back against the wall. Sarge jerked the knife out, causing the alien to scream in pain again.

"One last chance," Sarge taunted. The Elite roared and charged, swiping ferociously at Sarge who narrowly dodged each strike. Finally Sarge was forced back into a ledge with a deadly drop. "Uh oh…" The Elite laughed as he lifted his arm up for the killing stroke.

"TAKE THAT!!" The Elite was kicked in its side, from behind and was sent flying of the ledge, screaming to his long and eventually sudden death. Sarge looked up to see Grif staring off the ledge. "That's what you get mother fucker! Stealing my twinkies from me you stupid golden bastard!"

"Grif…did you just…" The orange Spartan turned suddenly to his red leader, in equal amount of shock. "YOU JUST SET YOURSELF UP FOR DEATH SOLDIER!!" Sarge ran up and pushed Grif towards the edge.

"HOLY FUCK!!" Grif slowly fell of the edge, but spun around and grabbed the ledge at the last second. "WHAT THE HELL?! I save you AGAIN and you're still trying to kill me!?"

"Nonsense, I had that alien right where I wanted him," Sarge screamed. "I was going to wait for him to strike, and then throw him back at you while I make my heroic escape!"

"Yeah, having your opponent fight me while you run, that's not very heroic Sarge. NOW HELP ME UP YOU MOHTER FUCKER!!"

"Well…I suppose since I wouldn't be allowed to see your death if you fell to your death, and you did do something useful for once. Why not." Sarge reached down and lifted Grif up onto the ledge. "We'll just have to come back here some other time so I can drop you, just like in that movie that Shakespeare made!"

"What movie," Grif asked.

"That movie, Shakespeare made, and it was produced by Disney. It had lions and everything."

"Sir, Shakespeare didn't make the Lion King, it was all Disney," Grif replied.

"Enough chit-chat," Sarge barked. "Let's move out! Our ride is outside!" The reds left the Cartographer and entered a Pelican and went…underground. What's this all about?

* * *

So yeah, this is over and done with, the chapter, not the story.

Sarge: Yer damn right the story ain't over!

Sarge? What the fuck are you doing here?

Sarge: You like to talk to yourself right? Well talk away buddy.

No not like-ah what ever. Are you here to make an announcement of some sort?

Sarge: Damn skippy. Now for those who've played Halo, then they know what the next chapter is gonna be about, and for those who don't, BUY HALO!! Buy it twice since you didn't buy it the first time! Also, the next chapter will have action, jokes, and lots of Grif pain and torments. And lots of SCREAMING!! From me!

Damn, you really did major in screaming in sergeant school.

Sarge: Indeed, NOW DROP AND GIVE ME THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!

Drop? Really?

Sarge: Well alright, sit and give me the next chapter!

That's better


	5. PSA: Fan Base

Church: Hey guys, I'm Church from the popular web series Red vs. Blue

Caboose: And I am also blue

Church: This public service announcement is on behalf of the author of this second rate fan-fiction to help his motivation of writing. I mean come on, people can only keep doing the same thing before they get tired.

Tucker: Bow chika bow wow! Hey guys, sorry I'm late. Hey, where are the red guys?

Church: They're busy fighting the Covenant and since we're just being lazy douche bags, this is a way for us to be involved.

Tucker: That's bullshit, I wanted to fight some aliens. Hey, do you think Blue squad will be in a version of ODST?

Church: Maybe.

Caboose: That sounds delicious.

Tucker: Caboose do you even know what ODST stands for?

Caboose: Either Oreos that kitties like to eat…or Orbital Drop Shock Troopers.

Church: I'm not even going to ask how he knew that…

Tucker: So what is this all about?

Church: Well the author of the Red vs. Blue fan-fiction where the reds act as the Chief from Halo one is working on the Assault to the Control room chapter, but feels that he needs to broaden his horizons.

Tucker: Broaden his horizons? He has Naruto lemons and this fucking funny story with lots of blood and gore. How much broader could he get?

Church: Yeah but did you read any of his other stories? He has a Teen Titans one that has like one review saying 'Sorry, but I'm not going to read this,' and a Kingdom Hearts one with no reviews whatsoever.

Tucker: You mean that high school Kingdom Hearts story?

Church: No that was just some story the author came up with while he was like in love with Larxene or something.

Caboose: So the author wants more stories!

Church: No, the author wants a wider fan-base. I mean who doesn't?

Tucker: So he wants people to read his stories if they like whatever series he's posting…even if it doesn't have sex or gore or funny ass jokes?

Church: Yeah…

Tucker: Good luck with that.

Church: Also he's thinking of posting a Left 4 Dead fan-fiction, but he's not entirely sure if people would read it.

Tucker: you know a good way for him to get more reviews on his stories is to ask the people what they want.

Church: Well I'm pretty sure that he might've done that and most of the people replied more lemons.

Tucker: What a shitty author who doesn't listen to the people.

Church: Well he's not talking bad about them, I think he's just tired of getting unappreciated.

Tucker: What a baby…

Caboose: The author gave me other series' that he could write a bedtime story about. In order they are Death Note, Left 4 Dead, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil and Star Wars.

Tucker: How was Caboose able to read all that?

Xorncon: Oh I just wrote the list down in a way Caboose would understand it.

Church: What the fuck, why are you here? Why didn't you do this public service announcement instead of us?

Xorncon: Who do you think the people would listen to? Me or Caboose?

Church: You I hope.

Xorncon: Well they don't have to deal with Caboose, so to them his antics are funny and/or cute.

Tucker: So how did you write it so Caboose would understand?

Xorncon: Oh I used various pictures of cats with the spelling of the series backwards. So for Left 4 Dead it'd be Daed 4 Tfel.

Church: I didn't know he could read like that.

Xorncon: Oh he can't, but the cats help him focus and his brain just processed the backwards lettering as forward.

Church: I would've never thought of that.

Tucker: So what are these fan-fictions going to be about exactly?

Xorncon: Well for anyone who knows Death Note, that fan-fiction would basically be about a new Kira who does the same stuff that Light did. The Left 4 Dead one would be all about Zoey-

Tucker: Oh yeah!

Xorncon: And no she doesn't get fucked by zombies.

Tucker: Fuck!

Xorncon: Instead the original group of survivors died and Zoey finds a new team with which she bonds with. It'll also have guns from Left 4 Dead 2 like melee weapons, combat shotty, combat rifle, and my personal favorite: the magnum!

Church: Sounds cool enough, but why Zoey?

Xorncon: One: I like Zoey the best. Two: Who from Left 4 Dead could you see fitting in with a new group of survivors the best?

Caboose: Francis

Xorncon: Wrong, the answer is Zoey. Or Louis if it's a team of sniveling little babies…kinda like you guys.

Church: Fuck you.

Xorncon: Basically the one thing all my stories will have in common is the usage of OCs so that's just a warning. And I do appreciate all my fans who review my stories, but like Church said: doing one thing over and over will eventually and inevitably get old.

Tucker: Not for me, I could do ladies all day every day.

Xorncon: No, that gets old too, otherwise why would you have gotten knocked up by an alien? FACE! Again: I really appreciate you guys but I'd like to do something new. So let me know if you'd like the Left 4 Dead idea or suggest ideas from the list Caboose read above. Oh, also I'm working on the next chapter of Halo: Combat Red. As a progress report: the reds have entered that first room…

Church: Nice progress

Tucker: Yeah really, what've you been doing all this time?

Xorncon: Hey, jokes on you because I'm not on blue team and I just gave Caboose a L4D2 magnum!

Caboose: What's this trigger do?

Tucker & Church: FUCK!!


	6. Assault to the Front of the Line

Sorry for the really late update, but I'm working on like eight different ideas, one of which is the only one I'm publishing, and this one I've sorta had a lack of interest with so I've been writing on and off with this one.

* * *

Upon a ledge was a lonely Grunt, walking back and forth while his compatriots slept peacefully. Suddenly, the Grunt sniffed the air just as a Pelican flew up in front of it. The small alien screamed and ran for dear life, alerting the rest of his sleeping Grunt friends.

"How does this make any sense," Donut questioned. "We went down last time, and now we we're moving upward in a ring. Sir, can you explain how that works?"

"Don't question the system Donut, just get ready to kill Covenant bastards! YEE-HAAAAAA!!" Sarge jumped out of the Pelican, rolling forward onto the metal floor that the Grunts were standing on. Sarge aimed his assault rifle then unloaded in two Grunts that couldn't make it through the door in time and died. "Come on out ya babies, stand your ground and prepare to get shot!" Sarge turned to the Pelican, staring at his squad. "You heard me, get out now! One two, one two!"

"This sucks," Grif murmured as Simmons and Donut hoped out of the drop ship. "Hey Sarge, can I just stay in the ship and meet up with you guys after I've eaten or something?" In response, Sarge began firing his assault rifle at Grif. "AH SHIT OKAY!" Grif lost his balance and flipped out of the Pelican, landing with a loud smack on his back. "ARGHH! That hurt!"

"Come on, let's move boys. That Control Room ain't gonna find itself for us!" Sarge took point, running after the fleeing Grunts with his fellow squad mates following behind him. The reds entered a room full of Covenant and a fierce firefight broke out with Grif and Simmons hiding behind one piece of cover while Donut was a short distance away from them and Sarge was firing back at the aliens. "Grif, Simmons move around to the side and flank them while Donut and I give you covering fire!"

"Yes sir," Grif shouted back as he ran to the right side of the room with Simmons following him. After a few steps, Grif stopped and stood still.

"Grif, what are you doing, we've got to go flank the enemy!"

"Are you kidding? Sarge is probably going to do something insane that involves a lot of physical harm to himself, but kills the rest of the Covenant, and we would've just ended up wasting bullets, so there's no real point in flanking them."

"But what if for once Sarge actually needs us to do something?! We'd be letting him down and he could die!"

"Simmons, I think even you should've learned by now that there's no point in trying to help anyway and-," Grif was cut off when and explosion from the other side of the wall threw him and Simmons back, with a ton of rubble on top of them.

"Grif, Simmons, I thought I told you to ambush the enemy! And now you're just sitting here under a pile of rocks!"

"Who blew out the wall," Grif asked, pushing a giant rock to the side.

"Why I did of course. I had to give the enemy a chance to shoot at you to take the attention away from us. You see, I knew that you'd stop and be lazy like always so I intentionally sent you here so I could destroy the wall, the Covenant would shoot at you and kill you, and then I could kill them!"

"That's one devious strategy sir," Simmons uttered.

"Thank ya Simmons."

"So you were intentionally trying to kill your own team," Grif asked.

"Come on, that seriously surprises you this far into the war," Simmons questioned.

"Well yeah, but…um…fuck it, you're right."

"Now let's keep moving," Sarge ordered as he once again took point. The reds now stood on top of a bride and were being sprinkled on by snow. "Huh, what's all this business?"

"Sir it looks likes it's snowing," Donut pointed out with his optimistic tone of voice. "I didn't know ring worlds that aren't planets could snow."

"The ring has an environmental system that can create snow or rain or whatever the system is programmed to do," Cortana told the reds. "I wonder if it's not malfunctioning."

"This is fire team Zulu requesting immediate assistance from any UNSC forces, does anybody copy over?"

"Sergeant Johnson," Sarge asked, almost tearfully over the radio. "Is that you sir!?"

"RED?! Holy shit red where the fuck are you!? We need help!"

"Roger sir, we're on our way!" Just then, a Pelican moved over and then lowered below the bridge where there was a long drop. "Grif, Simmons, Donut, Cortana, we're heading down that bridge POST HASTE!!"

"Except the fact that a drop like that would probably kill us," Cortana stated. "We're supposed to help fire team Zulu, not give them corpses to clean up."

"Ah, but with this stone wall we can easily make our way down to Sergeant Johnson much quicker than if we ran to the other side of the bridge!"

"Sir, that's just plainly stupid and suicidal, even by your standards," Grif stated. Suddenly, dozens of plasma shots flew past the reds' heads. Everyone turned to see what looked to be dozens of Grunts, Elites, and Jackals with four Hunters behind them.

"Do you have another plan Grif," Sarge asked casually.

"You go first sir," the orange Spartan replied with his voice painfully shrill. Sarge strode back then sprinted forward and leaped off the edge of the bridge, grabbing the stone wall for support before he let go to slide down even further. "Holy shit, he actually did it!"

"Grif, go," Simmons shouted as he and Donut started firing into oncoming Covenant forces.

"Shit, I'm so going to die!" Grif strode back and exploded forward and jumped off the bridge, gripping desperately at the stone wall. "I'M GONNA DIE!!" Suddenly, a strong hand caught Grif's, holding him up. "Sarge!? What the-why'd you save me!?"

"Don't you see idiot, by catching you I can also drop you, which means that I would've killed you! Not some stupid suicide attempt."

"Son of a bitch…"

"Also before you hit the ground, you wanna roll so the rate at which your falling converts into inertia and-,"

"I got it, roll before I hit, can you just drop me already?"

"If you say so." Sarge released Grif who screamed as he plummeted to the ground.

"Let's go Donut," Simmons shouted. Both Spartans turned and ran towards the edge of the bridge and jumped off, both gripping the stone wall and sliding down to Sarge. "Sir, where's Grif?!"

"Hopefully rolling," Sarge replied.

Down below, Grif landed on a massive pile of snow that somewhat softened his land. "Oh, shit," the orange Spartan groaned out as he gripped his head tightly. Suddenly, several blasts of plasma zoomed past Grif. "Son of a bitch…" The Spartan ran to a group of marines with a Warthog flipped over as they fired into the oncoming enemies.

"Sir, where's the rest of your squad," the marine shouted over the gun fire. Grif simply pointed up, causing the marines to give each other perplexed looks.

"JEEE-RANIMOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" The marines looked up as Sarge came crashing down towards them. The Spartan landed with a hard thud, causing snow to fly up around him. Sarge rolled through the snow and then gunned down a few Covenant aliens. "Suck it alien scum! Don't mess with red team!"

"Holy shit, how'd you survive that fall Sarge?!"

"You idiot: I told you to roll before you hit otherwise you'll die. Don't you listen to anything…" Sarge stopped, staring silently at his fellow red Spartan. "Uh…forget I said anything."

"Yeah consider it done," Grif replied.

"Alright men, fire at will!" Sarge, the marines, and Grif began firing at the oncoming Covenant forces.

While the humans and Spartans successfully gunned down multiple hostiles, more just kept coming. Suddenly, several frag and plasma grenades rained down from the sky, landing around the aliens and blowing them to bits. Clutching to the canyon walls with one hand each, Simmons and Donut began hurling what grenades they had at the Covenant. The remaining aliens either ran or were shot down before the other two Spartans made their decent to the ground.

"Great job Simmons, Donut."

"Thank you sir," Simmons replied.

"Sirs," a marine shouted. "Wraith inbound!"

"Wraith," Grif repeated. "What the fuck is a-," A large blue ball of plasma exploded nearby, shaking the ground they stood on. "Oh that Wraith…"

"Simmons, Grif, mount up in the warthog," Sarge ordered as he jumped into the driver's side. "We're taking that big purple tank out!"

"You got it Sarge," Simmons replied, getting up into the gunner's seat.

"Here sir," a marine said to Grif, handing him a rocket launcher.

"Great, I was going to bitch about how a passenger would be useless, but now I've got a rocket launcher…"

"Don't be stupid Grif; you've always been useless! It's just now you're useless with a rocket launcher. Odds are you'll probably get yourself killed with that too."

"Hopefully I can take you guys with me. Why can't Donut go instead?"

"WHOOOO!!" Donut suddenly went flying by in a Covenant Ghost, heading straight for the Wraith.

"Oh great, now he's going to die instead of me."

"Wrong again, if Donut dies I'll be sure to bury him in your remains," Sarge snapped back. "Now get in Daisy Duke!" Without another comment, Grif got in the side and Sarge sped off.

Donut screamed as he sped at the Wraith which fired relentlessly at him. The pink Spartan swerved back and forth, dodging the shots narrowly each time. Donut then hit the Wraith, his Ghost climbing up it and ramping off of it, blinding the pilot's view for a moment. The next moment the pilot could see, the Elite witnessed a rocket moments from hitting him. The rocket exploded, destroying the Wraith in a heaping inferno. The reds continued forward without another word, encountering another group of marines fighting off a horde of Covenant. Sarge rolled through the marines as Simmons started firing the chain gun. Sarge stopped and got out, running to Sergeant Johnson.

"Sergeant Johnson, are you okay sir?"

"Peachy," the angry marine replied before unleashing a volley of bullets from his assault rifle. "I'm glad you're here red, these bastards have been pressing against us for-,"

"Five minutes," Sarge finished. Johnson shot a glare at Sarge, even though he knew the Spartan was right. "Don't worry now sir, we'll burry these Covenant scumbags six feet under ice!" Sarge stood up and ran back for the warthog, jumping in the driver's side.

Donut accelerated full speed towards another Ghost piloted by an Elite who sped back at him. The Spartan leaped forward at the last second, allowing his Ghost to collide with the enemy Ghost, causing an explosion of blue plasma fire. Donut hit the ground and rolled, clutching his assault rifle when he realized he was surrounded by Grunts, Jackals, and two Elites. Donut gunned down the first Grunt and dove for its corpse, grabbing a plasma grenade. The pink Spartan hurled the grenade at a Jackal, sticking the grenade on its exposed hand. The bird alien screeched before the grenade went off, taking another Jackal and a Grunt in the blast. Donut ducked as an Elite tried to hit him in the back of the head. The Spartan unleashed a wave of bullets from his rifle, taking the Elite's shielding down. The angry alien turned around, roaring in rage at Donut. Out of nowhere, Simmons came up from behind and shot a clean hole through its head with his pistol. The second Elite tackled Simmons, pinning his arms with its legs and pressing down on Simmons' throat. Donut ran forward, firing his assault rifle at the alien. The Elite pulled out a plasma pistol, charged it and shot Donut with it. The impact of the plasma, combined with the small explosion of the energy shielding caused Donut to fall on his back. Sarge then kicked the Elite in the back of the head, causing the alien to roll forward. Sarge fired with an assault rifle while Simmons fired the pistol. The two reds successfully killed the Elite, but saw in the distance half a battalion of Covenant with Ghosts coming towards them.

"Sir, are we going to die," Simmons asked fearfully.

"Simmons, I need you to bring Grif to me ASAP!" Suddenly, a giant explosion erupted from the center of the Covenant battalion, destroying a large number of aliens. "What the samhell?" Grif and Simmons turned around, seeing a Scorpion tank rolling up.

"Guys, look what I fucking found!" Grif fired another shell from the tank, blowing another dozen Covenant forces to pieces. "Why the fuck weren't the marines using this before we got here?!"

"Grif, I order you to get out of that tank! Such high grade military weaponry shouldn't be in your hands!" The barrel of the tank slowly moved down, pointing directly at Sarge.

"I'm sorry, what was that Sarge?" Simmons slowly began walking backward so as not to get caught in the blast. "You want me to get out of the tank? You sure because I'm really comfy in here."

"Hey is that cake," Sarge asked, turning to his left.

"Cake, where," Grif demanded, turning his attention away. Sarge jumped on the tank and opened the cockpit. "Oh shit!" Sarge began wailing on Grif's face before grabbing the Spartan and throwing him out. Grif hit the ice with a thud, rolling over a few times before he stopped. Sarge climbed in, taking control of the tank. "No fair, you used my love of cake against me! You cheated!"

"No, it's called STRATEGY! Now get in the warthog and follow me." Grif sighed and got in the driver's side of the warthog with Simmons still in the gunner's seat.

"Here," Grif handed his rocket launcher to the marine that got in the passenger seat.

"Thank ya sir," the marine replied.

"Whatever…" The remaining marines piled onto Sarge's newly acquired tank while Donut salvaged another Ghost.

"Cortana, how far are we from the control room?"

"I'd guess about another hour…" Sarge grumbled before turning to Grif and Donut.

"You two moved forward and get the enemy's attention. Once they're distracted by you, I'll move up and BLAMO!! Tank in their face!"

"Great, let's go get ourselves killed," Grif responded before pressing down on the gas. The warthog and Ghost sped off while the tank followed after slowly.

After battling waves of Covenant infantry, turrets, tanks, and Ghosts, the red team with the marines eventually made it outside of a small door.

"Alright, we've got to head through here," Cortana told the reds. "Fire team Zulu, I'll send a message to Fullhammer to pick you up, just hold tight."

"Wait a minute," Grif shouted. "They get to wait for evac while we go in for a suicide mission!? How is that fair!?"

"You've got the advanced armor and superior training," a marine replied before throwing Grif back the rocket launcher.

"So we've got to leave the vehicles behind too, and—oh you dick, there's only one rocket left!"

"Come on Grif, just make use with what you've got," Simmons replied as he followed Donut and Sarge through the door. Grif murmured to himself before following his team.

The reds made their way through an empty complex, riding up and elevator and eventually walking outside on a naturally made bridge. "Wow," Donut replied. "This is so pretty!"

"They haven't seen us yet," Sarge pointed out. Just then, an Elite came out from behind a rock and spotted the reds. "Ah hell!" Sarge fired at the Elite as did Simmons. The two killed the Elite as Sarge quickly ran forward. "Move up!" Donut and Grif followed. Sarge and Simmons stopped behind a rock as Covenant fired viciously at them. Right next to Sarge was a Banshee. "Now that's luck!" Without another word, Sarge jumped into the aircraft and flew off of the bridge as Grif and Donut arrived.

"Oh that's fucked up," Grif shouted. Sarge circled back around, firing at the Covenant forces, burning through them with the plasma cannons.

"Fire at them," Simmons screamed, firing at the distracted Covenant.

Donut advanced to another rock, crouching behind it for cover and fired at the Covenant. With one huge green explosion from Sarge's Banshee, the Covenant on the bridge were all killed brutally. Sarge landed the Banshee, but didn't get out.

"Jump on boys, I'll guide us safely to the control room."

"Bullshit, you're gonna crash that thing into the nearest wall to fucking kill me!"

"You idiot, all of mankind is counting on us," Sarge shouted. "Why would I kill the entire team just to take you out when the price is all of humanity!?"

"Fine," Grif gave in before jumping on the wing of the Banshee. Donut grabbed the other wing as Simmons jumped on top.

"Hold on!" Sarge lifted off, heading towards the top of a massive structure.

"Sarge, there's a bit of a problem," Cortana stated. "The front door is locked, I can open it, but there's a large number of Covenant. Almost an entire legion."

"I've got an idea," Sarge exclaimed.

"That was fast. Odds are you're unnecessarily risking someone's life." Sarge landed the Banshee gently and got out as the rest of his team got off.

"Simmons, Donut, you two head to the top of that structure and lay down heavy fire," Sarge ordered, pointing to a high up area.

"Alright sir," Simmons replied.

"Grif, you still have that rocket launcher?"

"Oh god…yes."

"Good, you're coming with me behind enemy lines!"

"Fuck!" Simmons and Donut moved up the ramps and eventually got to the top of the structure.

"Hey Sarge," Donut shouted. "There's a sniper rifle up here!"

"Damn it!" Grif turned to Sarge with a confused look under his helmet.

"Grif, go up there and tell Donut to get down here. And leave your rocket launcher."

"Huh, why is that sir?"

"Well I was hoping by getting behind enemy lines you'd die somehow, but since there's a sniper rifle up there, the best strategic option would to have you go up there and snipe since you are the second best sniper on the team." Grif was silent for a moment. "You are the designated team sniper right?"

"And designated driver, but I usually drink anyway. I didn't know I was the official sniper. I mean I'm okay with the sniper, but it's not like I can no-scope someone a hundred yards away…"

"Well if you want you can still go on the dangerous, suicidal mission with me."

"Fuck that, moving out sir!" Grif ran up the ramp, dropping his rocket launcher on the way. Once at the top of the ramp, Grif was met by Donut. "Donut, Sarge wants you down there now. You're going on the suicide mission with him."

"Alright," Donut replied as he ran down the ramp. Grif then met Simmons who was viewing the area through the sniper scope.

"Hey, Sarge wants me to snipe."

"Bullshit," Simmons argued.

"Hey Sarge," Grif shouted. "Simmons won't give me the sniper rifle!"

"SIMMONS!! Give Grif that rifle or else I'll give Donut that rifle and tell him he can aim anywhere with it!" Without another word, Simmons handed Grif the sniper. Just then, Donut joined Sarge, rocket launcher on his back.

"Alright, Donut, hold onto the wing of this Banshee while we circle around. Once Grif and Simmons get their attention we'll move in with the Banshee, you fire the rocket launcher in the center of a large cluster of aliens, I land behind them and we start shooting some aliens."

"If this works, this'll be a really great idea sir."

"I know, now mount up!" Sarge got in the Banshee while Donut held onto the wing with one hand and holding the rocket launcher with the other. Sarge flew up and away from the doors while Grif aimed his sniper and Simmons aimed his assault rifle. "Alright Cortana, open the doors!" The massive doors slowly slid open, revealing nearly a hundred Covenant bunched together.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Grif shouted.

Simmons began firing his assault rifle, gunning down Grunts and alerting the entire group. Grif started picking off Elites with headshots, but the aliens as a whole started advancing. Sarge circled back around and hit the thrusters, sending the Banshee zipping forward. Sarge began firing the plasma cannons at the first wave of Covenant and firing a fuel rod shot at the second wave, killing nearly a dozen aliens right there. As they flew into the structure, a large concentration of aliens was seen.

"Fire now Donut!"

The pink Spartan fired the rocket launcher, blowing a large number of Grunts, Elites, and Jackals to bits. Suddenly, a golden Elite jumped up and slashed off the wing of the Banshee, causing Donut to drop to the ground and Sarge to start losing control of his ship. Donut hit the ground with a painful thud a second before the golden Elite landed on its feet. Sarge spun the aircraft around and began firing at the golden Elite. The Elite turned around an leaped high into the air, landing on the hull of Sarge's Banshee.

"Oh this can't end well…" The Elite slashed downward, slicing cleanly through the Banshee, but missed Sarge who already bailed out. The Banshee flew to the ground and exploded on impact, killing a few unsuspecting Covenant. Sarge landed painfully next to Donut. The two Spartans slowly pushed themselves up and looked forward, seeing the golden Elite walking out of the smoke and fiery remains of the Banshee crash. "Donut, do you have any ideas?"

"Uh…run?"

"Sounds like a great idea," Sarge said before he turned and headed the opposite direction.

"Honk blarg!" Subtitles: "Stop them, they're heading for the control room!"

"Blarg honk!" Subtitles: "Hey, these two are kicking our asses! You're the one with the fancy golden armor so you kill those two!"

Grif and Simmons continued raining down bullets upon the Covenant which seemed to be dying down. A bullet whizzed through an Elite's skull, bounced off the ground and pierced the golden Elite through the shoulder, causing him to roar in pain. Sarge and Donut poked their heads around the corner, seeing the golden Elite writhing in pain.

"Stick em Donut," Sarge ordered.

"You got it sir!" Donut threw a plasma grenade forward. The fiery blue ball arched and landed right in the Elite's mouth a split second before exploding.

"Nice toss soldier! You could've gone pro!"

"It comes from years of tossing! Now should we help Grif and Simmons or head for the control room?" Sarge looked at the horde of aliens which.

"Eh, they can handle themselves. It's only three Elites and six Grunts. Come on Donut, let's secure that control room!"

Outside, Simmons killed the last Grunt before reloading. "That was some good shooting Grif. I didn't know you were a sniper."

"I'm not," Grif replied, putting his sniper on his back. "I just had to aim and shoot and I would've hit something. The first half of those aliens I no scoped."

"Wow, where'd you train to no scope?"

"Are you fucking stupid? I just said I'm not a sni—no ya know what fuck it, I'm great, now let's catch up with Sarge."

"You got it," Simmons replied. The two Spartans moved down the ramps, past the pile of alien blood and guts everywhere. Eventually, the two turned a corner and saw Donut and Sarge in what must've been the control room. "Wow, this place is huge!"

"This is the fucking control room," Grif asked. "I was expecting…something looking like this actually."

"Donut, insert Cortana into the control room to give us access to Halo!"

"Sir, were we ordered to take control of Halo or just to secure the control room?"

"Don't be stupid Simmons, with control of Halo we can destroy all of the Covenant without even lifting a fleshy finger! Just a virtual one. Now put Cortana into the system Donut!" The pink Spartan yanked Cortana out of his head then placed her into the control systems. Cortana's image then grew in front of them, changing into multiple colors. "You alright Cortana?"

"Never been better," the AI replied. "You can't imagine the wealth of information. The knowledge…so much…so fast, it's glorious!"

"Am I the only one getting turned on," Grif asked, leaning towards Simmons.

"So how do we use this weapon to blow the Covenant sky high," Sarge asked, slamming his fist into his open hand.

"What are you talking about," Cortana asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"I thought Grif had problems paying attention. Halo, how do we use it against the Covenant?"

"This ring isn't a cudgel, you barbarian, it's something else…something much more important. The Covenant were right…this ring…it's Forerunner."

"For-what," Grif asked.

"Give me a second to access…yes, the Forerunners built this place, what they called a "fortress world" in order to…no, that can't be." The reds looked to each other then back at Cortana. "Oh, those Covenant fools, they must have known, there must have been signs!"

"What the heck is she talking about Sarge," Donut asked.

"Yeah, I'm a bit confused too," Sarge added. "We can't process thousands of megabytes of data per second unlike some people here."

"The Covenant found something, buried in the ring, something horrible, and now they're afraid."

"Hey, maybe whatever the fuck they found can take care of the Covenant instead of us," Grif replied cheerfully. "I say we just stay in this control room, radio for some help and kick back for a few days. No reason to go out and fight something the Covenant is afraid of."

"The captain," Cortana shouted a look of horror on her face. "We've got to stop the captain!"

"Fuck that, why can't we just-,"

"Stow it Grif, or I'm throwing you off this bridge! What's wrong with the captain Cortana?"

"The weapons cache he's looking for it's not—we can't let him get inside!"

"Weapons cache? I'm not getting any of this."

"THERE'S NO TIME!!" The reds jumped back at the AI shouting at them. "Get out of here, find Keyes and stop him!" The reds nodded then ran for the door ASAP. "Before it's too late!"


	7. 343 Guilty Pleasure

A pelican drop ship hovered closely to the ground, carrying the Spartan Red Team who prepared to save their captain. Grif was armed with a pistol and sniper rifle, Simmons had an assault rifle and pistol, Donut had a pistol and a daisy, and Sarge had a pistol and assault rifle.

"Alright men, our orders are clear," Sarge said to his team.

"What orders," Grif asked, staring into a dark swamp. "An AI started shouting at us and we didn't even understand half of what she said!"

"This was where Captain Keyes was last located," Sarge continued. "Whatever he was looking for we've got to retrieve!"

"Actually sir, we're supposed to save the captain, and make sure whatever he's looking for isn't tampered with."

"So…we're here to sabotage ourselves," Donut asked.

"Enough chit-chat, go, go, GO!" The reds filed out one at a time, landing in thick swamp water.

"Oh this is fucking nasty," Grif shrieked. "Why is this stuff so thick!? I thought swamps were supposed to have piss and shit! This stuff is white!"

"I dunno, I kinda like it," Donut replied as he slowly walked past Grif.

"Sir, come and look at this," Simmons exclaimed. Sarge ran up to a downed pelican drop ship with a shotgun lying on the ground.

"MINE!!" Sarge dove forward, grabbing the shotgun and aiming it at his team. Once he realized the reds weren't moving Sarge lowered his weapon. "Alright, now that I have a shotgun, we're back in business! The mission remains unchanged! We've got to find those weapons!"

"But sir, that's not the mission, our mission is to-,"

"Hop to it men," Sarge shouted before turning and running into the dark swamp. The reds sighed then followed their leader.

The Spartan team moved slowly, taking their time to observe the area around them when suddenly a loud explosion was heard. The reds snapped their heads up, seeing Grunt and Jackal bodies flying through the air and land around them.

"Holy shit," Grif shouted in fear, staring at a dead, mangled Jackal that landed in front of him.

"Ah, that must be the marine forces stationed here kicking some ass!"

"Sir, then why wouldn't they have joined us if they were on our side?"

"Why wouldn't they try to kill us if they weren't on our side," Sarge shot back. Simmons remained quiet.

"That's a good question…"

"Come on, let's move." The reds continued on into the swamp, finding either bodies, bullet holes, or some other ominous, confusing mystery. Finally, the Spartans came up to a base looking area that went underground. "Huh, what's all this business?"

"It looks like an underground military base that's been abandoned for some time sir."

"Military base huh," Sarge repeated. "This must be where the captain came to find those weapons! Let's hurry up, we can't wait any longer!"

"Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea," Grif asked, frightfully following his teammates. The reds entered the base, finding it to be a giant circular room with no other way in or out. "Alright, nothing here, let's get the fuck out of this place!"

"Nonsense Grif, there's got to be a hidden passage, or a door, or-,"

"Or an elevator," Donut finished, pointing to the holographic controls.

"Nonsense Donut! Why would someone put an elevator in a circular room like this? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever!" Donut pressed on a holographic button, causing the flooring the reds were standing on to sink. "Sweet Mustang Sally, what just happened!?"

"We were standing on an elevator Sarge," Donut replied.

"I see, good work Donut!" The reds descended into the base before finally coming to a slow stop.

"Okay, so now we're in the basement of a abandoned military base in the middle of a fucking creepy as hell swamp," Grif stated. "This is seriously a bad idea!"

"Sir, I've got to agree with Grif on this one sir," Simmons spoke up.

"Oh don't give me that Simmons, you're just made because you've got to work on your birthday!"

"It's my birthday?"

"Our mission is to save the captain! Donut's already planning your party once we get out of here so don't worry about it."

"Awe man Simmons this is going to be the best birthday party you've ever had! There's gonna be cake, and soda, and balloons, and even a surprise stripper."

"Oh cool, who'd ya get," Grif asked.

"Oh don't you worry about that Grif," Donut replied before laughing somewhat sinisterly.

"This is the worst birthday ever," Simmons muttered before following Sarge further into the base.

The further the team got, the more creepy things became. There were empty bullet shells on the floors, fires, broken glass, blood, but no bodies. Sarge paid no mind to it, but the rest of the reds were growing more and more terrified. Sarge suddenly froze, aiming his shotgun at the door in front of them. He signaled for Grif to take point. The orange Spartan stood there, not following his superior's orders. Sarge turned around, grabbed Grif's arm then forcefully put him in front then kicked him to the door which opened automatically. Grif was greeted by a pistol shot to his body.

"OW FUCK!"

"Stay back, stay back you're not turning me into one of those things," a marine shouted, huddled in a corner as he continued firing at Grif. The orange Spartan dove behind some nearby crates as the marine kept firing. Simmons and Donut walked out to see what the commotion was about but got shot at as well. "I'LL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!! Stay away from me!!" The marine screamed hysterically as he fired at Donut and Simmons. The pink Spartan dove behind a nearby wall while Simmons rolled next to Grif.

"What the fuck do we do," Simmons asked. "We're not supposed to shoot humans! Especially after that incident with you back on that espionage mission!"

"Played dead, that's what I did, played dead! Oh god I can still hear them!" The marine screamed again, sounding as though he were in pain before he fired at Donut who peeked around the corner. "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

"We would if you'd stop firing at us," Grif shouted. Sarge walked out into the door way, taking the marine's attention. The human squeezed the trigger, but his clip was empty.

"Donut, relieve him of his weapon!"

"Yes sir, I'm on it," the pink Spartan replied. Donut ran towards the marine who hurriedly tried to reload and took the weapon from him. The marine in return stole Donut's firearm then began firing at the pink Spartan at point blank. "OW!! Mission aborted sir!" Donut dove over some nearby crates as the marine turned to Sarge.

"Uh oh," the red leader said before running towards the wall Donut hid behind a moment ago.

"Fuck this shit," Grif shouted as he threw a grenade over the crates, landing it near the marine. There was a loud explosion that took out the wall the marine was huddling against, and blew the human to bits and pieces. The reds poked their heads out to see if the coast was clear, and all that remained was a smoking crater. "Ha, I took him out."

"Grif! That was a hysterical marine that you blew into space particles and you're HAPPY you did it? That's pure traitorism!"

"Sir, the term is treason sir," Simmons piped in.

"Hey, that fucker was shooting at us for no damn reason! Someone had to do something."

"We were doing something! We should've waited for him to run out of ammo then go up, mug him, and steal his wallet!"

"Yeah, cause that worked really well for Donut…"

"At any rate, I'll deal with your traitorous and insubordination later, right now we've got to find the captain!" The reds continued through the military outpost, eventually coming to an area that had human blood and bodies outside the front door.

"Why in the hell do we think this is a good idea," Grif asked.

"Sir, it looks like there are two ways down into that area sir."

"I see, Simmons you go with Grif on the other side and on the count of three we'll run down there and ambush our enemy from both sides!"

"Or we could just run down there right now since there's obviously nothing there," Grif murmured, walking down the ramp just to get away from Sarge.

"Grif wait, you're ruining the plan! Oh wait a minute, never mine, with you taking point, you're obviously more likely to die!" Grif approached a door that opened and a marine corpse fell over in front of the Spartan, causing him to shriek with fear. The reds ran down the ramp and saw the body. "Grif! Why'd you let this body hit the floor? That's dishonorable to him and to his family!"

"His family!? The only thing on this ring is us and a bunch of other dudes! I don't think this guy's fucking family is gonna know shit!"

"Hurry and move into the room," Sarge ordered. "I have a bad feeling…" The group moved into the room which had lots of doors and was painted in blood. "See, now I don't have that bad feeling anymore."

"What happened to these people," Donut asked.

"Good question, there could've been unimaginable horrors inflicted onto these people that could scar even the manliest of men! Grif, take one of their recording chip things and play the message through your helmet!"

The orange Spartan muttered and grabbed the nearest helmet. Sarge and Simmons watched their entrance/exit while Donut watched the open room. Grif skipped most of the boring stuff which was the marines standing around talking with the captain before he got to the part where the humans were all in the room that the red team was standing in right now. Grif let the video play and was horrified to see what was happening.

"Holy shit…" The reds turned to Grif who tore the chip out of his head then threw it to the ground, picking up his assault rifle. "We've gotten ourselves into some deep shit!" The sound of a loud pounding surrounded the reds coming from every door in the room.

"Sir, you remember that question about why they wouldn't kill us if they weren't on our side," Simmons asked with a fearful tone. "I got an answer…" The door bent open, coming closer and closer to flying off. "To lure us into a trap!"

The doors all exploded open and swarms of strange aliens that popped like balloons flooded. Next were strange aliens that leaped high into the air, and were promptly shot down. Upon closer inspection, the reds realized they were more or less zombies!

"ZOMBIE ALIENS," Sarge shouted in shock. "Grif, what'd you see in that video?!" The reds continued shooting the unknown aliens that came at them.

"Those little popper things can jump on people and turn them into zombies," Grif screamed back, firing into the oncoming aliens.

"We've got to escape," Sarge ordered, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Less we be overrun by these zombies! Luckily I have thirty seven different zombie plans! Grif, I need to use your flesh for thirty six of them!"

"Fuck you," Grif shouted as he finished the last of the popper aliens. "But I will agree to getting the fuck out of here!"

"Fair compromise," Sarge agreed before he hauled ass out of the room with the rest of his team following.

Outside of the room however, there were dozens of zombie Elites and humans which swarmed the reds. Grif shot one with a sniper rifle and the bullet traveled straight through the body, through another zombie, and through another before hitting the wall behind the three zombies.

"What the fuck!?" Grif unloaded three more bullets in different spots and the zombies just stood there and took it. Grif's sniper clicked empty as he looked at it then the zombie in front of him. The Elite zombie swung its arm back, sending Grif flying across the room and smacking into the wall with great force. The zombies charged Grif who pulled out his pistol and fired two shots into the zombie as it fell to the ground. The other two were swiftly taken care of by Donut and Sarge. "What the hell?! I shot those bastards at point blank with a sniper and they didn't die, but oh a pistol will kill them!" Simmons knelt down next to the body and examined it.

"I guess the sniper bullet just whizzed through them without really hurting them. There was too much speed and it just went right through them, but the bullets have got to hit and do major damage."

"How the fuck does that make ANY god damn sense?!"

"I dunno, I'd just say lose the fucking sniper." The reds continued one as Grif dropped his sniper and followed.

The red team fought their way through countless zombie aliens before they arrived into the room they started in. Sarge and Donut stood their ground and fired at the zombies while Grif and Simmons ran back into the other room towards the elevator they used to get there in the first place.

"Come on Simmons, hurry up," Grif urged.

"Hey, this is a fucking hologram! You want to try and work it?! How the fuck did Donut get this thing to work!?"

"Hurry up," Grif screamed as he saw Sarge and Donut backing up into the room, losing ground fast to the endless supply of alien zombies. Simmons started shaking his hands, unsure in what to do before he finally just pressed something. There was a loud noise, causing the two Spartans to look up, seeing a flaming pile of what use to be an elevator fall down into a dark abyss. The two stood there and stared into the darkness in silence. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!"

"Where's the elevator," Sarge asked, blasting a hole in a zombie in midair. "Heh, zombie donut…"

"Sir, I don't think that's very funny," Donut said between his stream of bullets.

"SIMMONS BLEW THE ELEVATOR UP!!"

"I did not," Simmons protested.

"Say what," Sarge asked, turning around completely in a rage, leaving Donut to fight the zombies on his own. "How the hell did you destroy an elevator son?!"

"I didn't! Those things must have-,"

"Sir, I need some help!"

"Oh right," Sarge said, turning around and aiding Donut against the zombies. Simmons and Grif joined in, thinning out the aliens quickly until the room was totally empty. "Now Simmons, Grif claims you destroyed the elevator…"

"And I claim that it's Grif's fault." Sarge remained silent, turning to Grif slowly before socking him in the face, causing the orange Spartan to hit the ground in a heap.

"OW! What the fuck!?"

"He rushed me sir, I didn't know what to do so I just hit something."

"Hit what," Donut asked. "There's only one thing to hit and that's what I hit whenever I brought the elevator up." Sarge turned to Simmons, and gave him a swift kick to the stomach with a 'hiya' thrown in. Simmons groaned and keeled over, holding his stomach.

"Now because of you two nimrods we're stuck in here until the zombies eat us! This isn't how I wanted to die! I was thinking I'd be killed in Paris, shooting smelly Frenchmen from the Eiffel tower for giving up their country so easily to enemy invaders and then they'd have to bring in a jet and destroy their precious tower in a hell storm of fire just to take me out!"

"That's kinda how I want to die," Donut said.

"What, going out with a bang?"

"No, I just want to die in Paris owning a bakery or a deodorant store."

"I'm pretty sure you're deodorant store wouldn't last long in France, Miss Snowball." Sarge walked over to Simmons and Grif, kicking them both. "Wake up, we've gotta find another way out, or kill every last one of these bastards trying!" Grif and Simmons slowly got up, groaning in pain before following Sarge and Donut.

The reds continued through the facility, into and past rooms and hallways that ALL LOOKED EXACTLY THE SAME! But somehow, the reds found another elevator. Simmons and Donut started firing at the zombies while Sarge and Grif ran onto the elevator, looking at the controls.

"What're you waiting for," Grif asked anxiously. "Start this fucking thing!"

"Go get Donut," Sarge ordered. "We don't want another elevator exploding!"

Grif ran to Donut, tapping him on the shoulder and telling him to head to the elevator. The two ran back to the elevator while Simmons threw a grenade into the center of the zombies and their popper buddies. The grenade exploded, blowing everything into bits and pieces. Simmons turned around and jumped onto the elevator as Donut started it.

"Are we close to getting out of here," Simmons asked as he panted.

"Don't worry men, I've got an unshakable good feeling about this," Sarge said to his men with his back turned to the smeared gore behind him. "These zombies are great in numbers, but they have one tactical weakness: THEY DON'T HAVE ANY GUNS! So all we've gotta do is make sure that we can keep out distance and they won't stand a chance!" The elevator slowed down as the rest of the reds stood still, shaking in their armor at the gory mess smeared on the walls they passed behind Sarge. "Now let's kick some—OH JESUS!" Sarge was shot in the back by a zombie holding a shotgun, gurgling at the rest of the reds.

"FUCK," the reds shouted as the dove for cover.

Donut and Simmons stared at an Elite zombie that fired at them with a plasma rifle. The two reds dove in opposite directions then quickly circled the zombie. Grif was shooting at a wave of poppers while the shotgun wielding zombie slowly approached the Spartan from behind. Suddenly, Sarge shot up and wrapped an arm around the zombie's neck and its arm. The zombie thrashed and gurgled in anger as Sarge maintained his tight grip. Sarge pulled out his pistol and blew the zombie's head off, but surprisingly the damn thing didn't die. The zombie threw Sarge off its back and turned towards him with its shotgun aimed. Sarge rolled back as the bullets hit the floor. The red leader jumped up then hurled his gun like a spear. The barrel imbedded itself into the zombie's chest, but was seemingly unfazed by it. Sarge ran up quickly, grabbed his shotgun then pulled the trigger, blowing a massive hole into the zombie's torso. Donut speared the zombie on one side and slammed it into a nearby wall while Simmons fired at its head and upper body with his assault rifle. After enough shots, the zombie alien was dead and Donut let it fall to the floor.

"Good work men," Sarge exclaimed as he ran to the door.

"Wait, Sarge how aren't you dead," Simmons asked.

"He's a zombie," Donut accused.

"If I were I would've killed Grif by now don't cha think?" The reds turned to each other then nodded in agreement. "My shields took most of that blast and then I just played dead, like that crazy marine that Grif blew to bits did. Now, let's keep moving!"

The reds progressed through the facility, fighting countless zombies in identical rooms before going up another elevator. Whenever they got to the top, they saw movement and Grif suddenly opened fire.

"Hold yer fire," a marine shouted.

"What the," Simmons said baffled. "Living people?!"

"Shit," Grif exclaimed. "No fucking way!"

"That would've made two in one day Grif," Sarge stated. "You're really pushing it!"

"Sirs, we're glad you made it," one marine said as he approached the Spartans. "We've been here for hours. We've gotta get out of here."

"Right," Sarge agreed. "Men, follow me and don't let those balloon things get your. Or else I'm gonna shoot ya." Sarge headed out into the swamp where it was now raining.

"He's not kidding either," Grif told the marines before following Sarge.

The reds and marines didn't make it more than eight feet out into the swamp before they were swarmed by poppers and zombies. Three marines got jumped by the poppers and were slowly and painfully forced to the ground.

"Keep moving," Sarge ordered, running ahead. The marines quickly followed the Spartan team blindly into the dark swamp. "What's all this business?"

The group looked up and saw a giant tower structure before they were suddenly swarmed by more zombies. The marines were taken out without the slightest bit of effort from the zombies. The alien foes forced the reds' back against a wall before they got cut down by random laser beams from the sky. The reds looked up and saw small flying space ships firing lasers at the zombies, burning them to pieces.

"What are those things sir," Donut asked Sarge. Before he could answer, the reds vanished in a tower of golden light and reappeared on the ledge of the tower structure. The reds were confused before they turned around, seeing a blue floating orb.

"Greetings," it said, "I am 343 Guilty Spark, monitor of instillation 04." The reds lowered their weapons. "Someone has released the Flood."

"The Flood," Grif repeated.

"Those must be those zombie things," Donut chimed in cheerfully.

"My function is to prevent it from leaving this instillation. But I require your assistance, come this way." The reds were once again surrounded by rings of golden light and disappeared entirely from the swamp.


	8. Library's Suck

Yeah…Red vs. Blue Re…uh…whichever the new season is, mainly episode three, has gotten me inspired so here we go once again!

* * *

Sarge, Grif, Simmons, and Donut hit the ground, coming out of towering, golden rings, each hitting with a groan. "Damn it Grif," Sarge screamed. "Get off me ya fatty!"

"Hey, it's not me, it's Simmons," Grif exclaimed, trying to push the maroon Spartan off.

"Donut, get off me damn it," Simmons screamed.

"I don't know, I kinda like this." The reds, except Donut, all groaned angrily and pushed up, causing Donut to roll onto the floor. "Ow, hey that wasn't nice!"

"Oh dear, I apologize for that," Spark said, floating down to the reds' level. "You all aren't damaged are you?"

"I'll damage you," Sarge screamed, pushing past the reds and shaking his fist angrily at the Monitor. "I'll damage you with a giant laser beam in some climactic ending, and it'll be so satisfying! It's nothing personal, it's just that you seem like you're an annoying floating blue ball." The Monitor only laughed and floated away.

"Come, this way." The reds looked to each other as the floating ball completely shrugged of Sarge's threat. "The Index is this way Reclaimers."

"Re-what now," Grif asked. "Whatever those are it sounds like there's a lot of work that goes along with it."

"Why the hell would we want to get this Index thing," Simmons asked, pushing himself to his feet. "We're not in a library."

"The Index is what we need to claim to activate this instillation," the Monitor stated, floating back down towards the reds. "We can use it in the control room, and when activated, this instillation will eliminate the threat of the Flood."

"There's gonna be a flood," Donut asked fearfully. "We need to start building a boat! And we need to two of every animal, and those guys who sang that song. I'm on a boat, whoo yeah, I'm on a boat mother fucker don't you ever forget!"

"No Donut," Simmons replied. "I think he means those zombie things that attacked us in the swamp. Sir, if this ring destroys those zombies I vote for activating this thing."

"Agreed, now how do we activate this ring?"

"I've already told you Reclaimer! We must find the index!"

"Quiet blue guy," Sarge shouted, staring at the Monitor. "I never liked the color blue ya know…now the Color Purple! That was a great movie!"

"Sir, I didn't know you liked Oprah," Donut exclaimed.

"Of course! If a woman who can go from a news caster to having billions of dollars and owning everything in the world suggests me to read a few books I'll do it so I can learn her secrets and become just as powerful and influential as she is!"

"Now that's the American dream," Grif muttered sarcastically. "Trying to outdo Oprah…"

"Guys," Simmons urged, "We have to follow this thing so it'll lead us to the key that'll activate the ring!" The three reds followed Simmons' finger which pointed at the Monitor. They stared for a moment before turning to Sarge.

"Maybe we can find a map or ask for directions," Sarge suggested. Suddenly, the reds were surrounded by waves of Flood.

"GUAH," Donut shouted, pulling out his assault rifle. Simmons clutched his assault rifle as well, taking aim and waiting for the order. Grif pulled out a sniper rifle and aimed it at the nearest zombie.

"You sure you want to do that," Sarge asked.

"Why," Grif questioned skeptically.

"No reason," Sarge replied with a smug tone, remembering Grif's previous encounter with the zombie and a sniper. "Alright men, let's kill some zombies!" Sarge cocked his shotgun then ran towards the alien zombies.

"I told you, they're called the Flood," Spark shouted.

Sarge blew a hole through the first Flood combat form, and socked the second in the face, causing it to hit the floor. Grif fired a round through three combat forms, but the bullet did nothing.

"Shit, now I remember this thing sucks against zombies!"

"It's not the gun Grif, it's just you that sucks," Sarge corrected. "Watch and learn!" Sarge picked up the rifle by the barrel. "In the hands of a true soldier, anything can be used as a weapon! Watch and learn!" Sarge turned to the nearest combat form and swung the sniper like a bat, imbedding the butt of the weapon halfway through the monster's body. "See what I mean? Now try it on that thing!" Sarge handed the sniper to Grif who looked at the gun then at a giant, waddling Flood.

"Alright, HEEE," Grif ran up and swung at the Flood. "YA!" The weapon impacted, causing the zombie to explode and send Grif flying back, arms flailing as he screamed like a girl.

"GRIF! What'd we talk about whenever you strike giant things that look like they might blow up?!" Grif hit the ground with a painful thud. Sarge approached the downed Spartan as Simmons and Donut started firing at the oncoming Flood. "Grif, can you hear me!?"

"Yes," Grif managed to moan out.

"Good, then what the hell did we talk about whenever you strike giant things that look like they might blow up?!"

"What the fuck?! We never went over anything REMOTELY like that," Grif shouted, standing up suddenly.

"Wrong, I ordered you to either die or lose your hearing so that I can insult you without worrying about your feelings!"

"You never worry about my feelings," Grif accused. "Damn it that thing hurt…"

"I bet, now get to firin at the enemy!" Sarge ran to join Simmons and Donut in the firefight.

"Right, fire at the enemy," Grif repeated. "All I have is this stupid pistol. Fuck it, this thing works against these zombies…" Grif ran up, popping Flood after Flood while the rest of the reds poured into the unrelenting wave of zombies.

"There's too many," Donut shouted.

"Don't worry, we'll execute battle strategy number 87! Donut battle strategy number 87 order 42!"

"Yes sir," Donut replied. The pink Spartan dropped his weapon then clutched the sides of his helmet and began screaming as loud as possible.

"Simmons, battle strategy number 87 order 66!"

"Order 66," Grif repeated. "Is Simmons going to kill all the Jedi?"

"No, just you," Sarge replied.

"FUCK!" Grif hit the ground as Simmons fired a pistol shot at where his head was. "Damn it Simmons!"

"Orders are orders Grif," Simmons replied. "And no offence, but you're a prick anyway so I don't mind shooting you." Suddenly, laser beams started raining down around the reds, torching through the Flood. "What the—what's going on sir?"

"Huh, looks like some type of automated defense flying ship things," Sarge replied as he pointed up to the floating ships that were the sources of the lasers.

"These are the protectors of the instillation: the Sentinels," the Monitor explained. "They were specifically designed to combat the Flood threat."

"Protectors eh? Pretty shitty job if you ask me. A bunch of aliens landed on the ring and are running around shooting each other and I've never seen these things. If they were REAL protectors they would've shot the Covenant and everything else out of the sky!"

"Sir, maybe you shouldn't suggest things like that," Simmons replied. "Especially since they killed a wave of those Flood things and we were about ready to give up and die."

"Hm, good point Simmons. Good job you floating ship things that suck at finding and kill other alien life forms. Your lasers are cool, but you still are pretty shitty protectors if ya ask me!"

"Sarge," Simmons hissed, looking up at the Sentinels.

"Alright, show us the way to the Index, or whatever it is light bulb," Sarge said, turning to the Monitor.

"Of course Reclaimer, this way." The reds followed the floating blue orb through the dark fortress. "This facility was designed to study and analyze the Flood threat. There were live specimens contained within this facility, but they somehow escaped. My creators named this facility the Library."

"The Library," Grif repeated. "This is bullshit! I don't even fucking read!"

"Anything in here that's got Oprah's seal of approval," Sarge asked.

"Reclaimer I have no idea what you're talking…wait…what is this…?"

"What's wrong light bulb," Sarge asked.

"Apparently there is a book in here that Oprah's seal does have," the bulb explained. "It's on the second floor. I'll show it to you on the way to the Index."

"Alright, now we're talking," Sarge exclaimed. The reds, led by the Monitor, moved through the facility, gunning and running until they got to a massive open circular room.

"Where the hell do we go," Grif asked, turning to Simmons.

"Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast," Sarge ordered as he and Donut fired into the oncoming Flood. "Haha, you just got-," Before the one-liner could be finished, an infectious form jumped on Sarge's visor. "AGH!! GET IT OFF!!"

"Yes sir," Donut shouted, firing one round cleanly through the zombie.

"Damn it," Sarge exclaimed. "That thing messed up my one-liner!"

"Reclaimers, please hurry and get onto the lift," the Monitor called after.

"What lift," Simmons asked as the blue ball floated in front of him. "We're on a giant blue floor! A lift or elevator would have a door or walls or something!"

"Simmons stop trying to argue with it! Sarge, Donut, fall back!" Donut turned and started to run, but stopped and turned to Sarge who kept firing at the Flood.

"Sir, come on," Donut shouted. "We've gotta go!"

"Son I'd rather _DIE_ than take an order from Grif!"

"Fuck it," Grif shouted. "Monitor thing, just get us the fuck out of here!"

"Of course Reclaimer," Spark nodded before floating into the sky. There was a loud snapping noise and the lift began moving upward.

"Donut, Sarge," Simmons shouted.

"Go Donut," Sarge ordered. "You like Grif so you don't have to worry about your pride!" After a moment, Donut turned and ran towards the lift and managed to get on before it got out of reach.

"Sir," Simmons screamed. "NO!!" Sarge continued firing into the Flood, stepping further and further back. "Spark, go help him!"

"I have no way to attack the Flood Reclaimer," the Monitor replied. "I can signal for the Sentinels to help him, but I cannot do much on my own."

"Damn it," Simmons screamed.

"Why the fuck didn't he run," Grif asked.

"He didn't want to take orders from you," Donut replied.

"That stupid idiot, oh well, we're better off without him." The reds stood around silently before they realized how incredibly slow the elevator was going. "Hey, can you make this damn thing go any faster?"

"I am sorry Reclaimer, but I cannot. Oh, the Sentinels have just reached the other Reclaimer. Oh dear…this is…oh my!"

"What," Simmons asked. "What's wrong!? What happened to Sarge?!"

"OH NO!! NO, what's the matter with you!?"

"He's dead, oh god he's dead," Simmons screamed tearfully. "No Sarge, why, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE?!" The maroon Spartan fell on his hands and knees, putting his forearm across his visor and began sobbing.

"YE-HAW," a heavily accented voice shouted. The reds looked over to the edge, seeing Sarge riding a Sentinel like a flying horse. "Now what's this about someone dyin?"

"SARGE," Simmons shouted happily. "You're alive!"

"Of course I am!"

"But I ordered a fall back," Grif stated. "So this is you obeying my orders! Ha! I win!"

"Wrong numb-nuts, you said 'fall back.' This is the exact opposite of falling! I'm rising like an uncontrollable wave of heat with a shotgun!"

"He's got a point," Donut replied.

"Son of a bitch…"

"This is actually kinda fun," Sarge stated. "How do you fire the lasers on this thing?"

"Reclaimer, that is _not_ meant to be used in such a way!"

"Ah lighten up light bulb. Of course if ya did that you might give the rest of us cancer…"

"Reclaimer," Spark shouted. "Please get off!"

"I could ride you like this if ya want." The Monitor levitated quietly, keeping its eye focused on Sarge. "Ha, Sarge one, light bulb zero!"

"Reclaimer, please do not exhaust my patience…"

"Alright, so where is this Index thingy?" The lift suddenly stopped, and Sarge halted as well. "Is it here…?"

"No," the Monitor replied. "But until you have to get to the right lift then head back down. You remember that giant circular room with the giant hole in the middle?"

"Are you fucking kidding," Grif asked. "That floating green thing was the fucking Index?!"

"Correct Reclaimer. We must head to the correct lift and then move down."

"Why couldn't you just float across and get it," Simmons asked angrily. (A/N: seriously, why doesn't he?!)

"Protocol does not allow me to have person handling of the Index," the Monitor replied. "Only you Reclaimers may handle the Index." The lift stopped and the Monitor floated forward. "Come this way." The blue orb realized that the reds weren't following him then started looking around. The Monitor spun around, seeing the reds were still on the lift. "What's wrong Reclaimers?"

"Well if you can't touch the Index, why don't we just head back down and Sarge do it," Grif asked.

"I—you—we—they…uh…well you see—um…well…"

"What's the verdict," Simmons asked hastily.

"There's uh…no protocol saying that you couldn't do that…"

"Ha-ha, whack-o-mole," Sarge exclaimed. "Let's head back down Sparky!"

"Wait Sarge," Donut called out, "what about Oprah's book?" Sarge froze in air. The reds and the Monitor watched the red Spartan intently as he placed his hand to his chin, humming quietly.

"Light bulb," Sarge shouted.

"Yes Reclaimer?"

"What's the protocol about you getting a book for me?"

"Um…well…"

"Can you get it or not?"

"I suppose I could but-,"

"Good work, now get to gettin!" The Monitor lit up to say something, but just gave up and floated into the distance. "Alright so…what do we do in the meantime?"

"Well we could get the Index while the Monitor gets the book," Simmons suggested.

"We _could_ do that, just as a cat _could_ beat a dog at a high stakes game of poker!"

"What does that even mean," Grif questioned.

"Sir, with due respect sir, I think a cat is smarter than a dog," Simmons replied.

"Maybe, but dogs are craftier! Don't you remember there was a painting of dogs playing poker? I didn't see any cats in that painting, expect the cat heads and skin mounted on the wall of course!"

"You must have the wrong painting sir," Simmons replied.

"What? Oh no, not the old one, that new one painted by Tom Hanks. That man can do anything!"

"Here Reclaimer," the Monitor said, floating towards Sarge with the book in some kind of tractor beam.

"Thanks light bulb," Sarge replied, taking the book away. "Now let's head back down!" The elevator cracked and squeaked down slowly. "Huh, this looks interesting." Sarge opened the book and began reading.

Back on the ground floor, the reds were greeted with nearly a hundred of Flood infectious, carrier, and combat forms. Simmons, Grif, and Donut all fired into the alien zombies while Sarge's Sentinel fired its beam through the zombies, burning them to the ground. Sarge meanwhile, lied back on the ship and read the book. The reds pushed through wave after wave of Flood and eventually found a place to collapse safely.

"Why the hell," Grif said, panting, "are there so many…?"

"Well this was a load of hooey," Sarge exclaimed, slamming the book shut. "Vampires that sparkle in the sunlight?! Who ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?! I think Oprah is losin it!"

"Are you fucking serious?! We've been fighting our asses of and you've been sitting there reading a book!? What kind of fucking leader are you?!"

"A damn good one," Sarge exclaimed. "Oh my boss isn't doing anything and I'm stuck with all the paper work, or killing all the zombies, boo-hoo-hoo. That's the military for ya! I fight more battles, I get promoted, and if I get promoted high enough I get to sit back and tell you guys to go die for me."

"That's bullshit," Grif muttered. Suddenly a rocket hit the bottom of the Sentinel, sending Sarge flying into the air head over heels. The reds looked forward, seeing another group of Flood coming at them. "Damn it, why can't these things just stay away?!" Suddenly, Sarge landed on his feet, letting out a breath of air as he hit the landing. The rest of the reds jumped back with sudden fear, while Sarge only pulled out his shotgun.

"Let's kill us some zombies!" The red commander charged towards the zombies while the rest of the reds watched with confusion.

"How the fuck did he stick that landing," Grif asked.

"I don't know," Simmons replied. "But we should probably help him…"

"Right," Grif agreed. In the middle of the Flood horde was Sarge, firing his shotgun, using the weapons the Flood held to shoot themselves with it, and causing all sorts of gore and carnage. "Or we could just let him do all the work."

"I second that," Don't said.

Sarge thrusted his elbow into the gut of an Elite combat form, grabbing its wrist holding a plasma rifle. Sarge spun around, firing the plasma weapon, burning holes through countless Flood enemies. The red leader eventually threw the combat form over his shoulder, onto the ground and unloaded a blast through its chest. Sarge turned around, seeing a human combat form holding a rocket launcher aimed at him. The rocket fired. Sarge simply twisted his upper body to the side as the rocket blew up five combat forms behind him. The red threw his shotgun forward, its barrel sticking in the face of the combat form which gurgled with notice. Sarge ran forward down the alley of gunfire and Flood. A carrier form exploded, throwing Sarge of balance a bit, but he still continued forward. A human combat form got in his way. Sarge threw a punch through the zombie's face and through the back of its head. The red leader spun around, pulling his arm out and using the zombie as a shield for another rocket. The explosion sent Sarge flying backwards, hitting a carrier form. The bloated Flood exploded, sending Sarge high into the air with his shields lowered. The human combat form reloaded the rocket launcher and fired another. Sarge fell faster than expected though as the rocket flew above him. He landed on an Elite combat form then charged at the human combat form with his shotgun still imbedded in its face. This time Sarge managed to get close, grabbing the handle of the shotgun and pulling the trigger. The zombie slowly fell backwards as Sarge snatched the rocket launcher from it. With a shotgun on one hand and a rocket launcher in the other, Sarge turned around, facing the large number of Flood that came towards him.

"Gentlemen, well not gentlemen, more like crazy-mutated-alien-men, get ready!" The red leader dropped a handful of frag and plasma grenades at his feet then jumped forward, using a carrier form as a foothold. The explosion sent Sarge flying into the air. He aimed the rocket down at the grenades which were now covered by countless alien zombies. "You just got Sarged!" A rocket flew out of the barrels and exploded, causing the grenades to make a larger explosion that killed all the Flood enemies. Sarge landed on his feet again, looking at the smoking, charred, and flaming destruction around him. He carelessly tossed the rocket launcher to the side then approached his team, all of whom were still in awe. "What?"

"You…you killed them all…" Grif stated.

"And you stuck the landing," Donut added.

"A mighty fine landing sir!"

"Thank ya Simmons," Sarge replied. "See, whenever you get to be that good then you can make other people fight for ya. Until then, you've got a long way to go boys." Sarge continued into the next room, which turned out to be where the Index was.

"Well there's the Index, but we don't have a flying machine anymore so we can't get it," Grif stated angrily. "And I'm _not_ walking back to that elevator."

"Can't you just call more Sentinels Spark," Simmons asked.

"Unfortunately no," the Monitor replied. "They know what that Reclaimer did and they'd much rather kill you all now than help."

"So what now," Grif asked. Sarge turned to Grif slowly. "Oh shit…you've got a plan don't you?"

"Yep," Sarge replied, walking towards the Monitor. The commander pulled the blue orb down.

"Oh my, release me Reclaimer!"

"Not today light bulb, you're gonna help Grif get that Index!" Sarge spun around, throwing the Monitor with all his strength into Grif's stomach. The orange Spartan started screaming as he flew backwards. Once they slowed down, Grif desperately latched onto the Monitor, hanging on for dear life. "Good job Grif, now get that Index thingy!"

"GOD DAMN IT! I FUCKING HATE YOU!!"

"This is not the way the Index was meant to be retrieved Reclaimer," the Monitor shouted.

"It's gonna work one of two ways boys: you float over and get the Index or," Sarge waited, letting the screaming of the Flood finish his sentence.

"Let's hurry the fuck up," Grif shouted to the Monitor.

"Agreed!" Grif floated over as the rest of his team started firing at the oncoming zombies. The orange Spartan reached out with one hand, barely grazing the Index with his fingertips. "You've gotta move closer!"

"Hurry it up," Sarge shouted. "They're going after you two!" Grif extended his arm further, grabbing the Index from the air.

"I got it! Get us the fuck out of here!"

"You got it Reclaimers," the Monitor replied happily. The reds were surrounded by golden rings and teleported away.


	9. Betraying Prick

The reds reappeared back in the control room, Sarge, Simmons, and Donut standing side by side, and Grif still holding onto the Index and the Monitor. "GUAH! Let me down!" The three reds turned, just as the Monitor shook Grif off. "Ow, I meant gently!"

"You retrieved the Index, right Reclaimer?"

"Well if I didn't we'd have to turn around," Grif replied, holding the Index up.

"Excellent, this way please." The reds and 343 Guilty Spark move up to the main control panel at the heart of Halo. "Unfortunately, my usefulness to this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units with my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with the core. That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimers." The reds shrugged to one another then put the Index into the core. There was a brief humming that soon died down. "Odd…that wasn't supposed to happen…"

"Oh really," Cortana asked, enlarging herself within the core. There was a flash of light that knocked the Monitor and all the reds onto the floor.

"OW," Grif shouted. "What the fuck was that for?"

"I've spent the last twelve hours cooped up in here while you toady about, helping that thing get ready to slit our throats!"

"Hold on now," Sarge began, slowly getting up to his feet. "This light bulb here is a friend."

Cortana raised her hand to her mouth and said, mockingly, "Oh I didn't realize. He's your pal is he? Your chum?" Her mood shifted to one of pure rage, "Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do?" The reds looked at each other then back to Cortana.

"Activate Halo's defenses to destroy the Flood," Donut asked.

"Yeah, that's why we brought the fucking Index to the control room," Simmons added angrily.

"You mean this," Cortana asked as the Index appeared in her hands.

"A construct," the Monitor asked, the anger in its tone rising as it moved forward. "In the core? Absolutely unacceptable!"

"Sod off," Cortana shouted.

"Am I the only one getting turned on," Grif whispered, leaning towards Simmons.

"What impertinence," the Monitor shouted, "I shall purge you at once!"

"You sure that's a good idea," Cortana asked, smiling deviously as the Index disappeared.

"How…how DARE you! I'll-,"

"Do what," Cortana hissed. "I have the Index, you can just float and sputter!"

"Alright enough," Sarge shouted. "If anyone talks again I'll shoot Grif as an example that I'll shoot them next! Cortana, the Flood is spreading, if we activate Halo's defenses we can wipe em all out in one fell swoop!"

"You have no idea how this ring works do you," Cortana asked. "Any of you bumbling idiots have any idea? Why the Forerunners built it? Halo doesn't kill the Flood, it kills their food: humans, Covenant, WHATEVER! The only way to kill the Flood is to starve them to death! And that's exactly what Halo is designed to do: wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don't believe me, ask _him!_" The reds slowly turned to the Monitor.

"Is all that true," Donut asked, fearing what would come next.

"More or less," the Monitor replied casually. "Technically, this instillation's pulse has a maximum radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But once the others follow, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood. But you already knew that…I mean, how couldn't you?"

"Left out that little detail did he," Cortana asked angrily, her eyes focusing on the Monitor.

"Minor," Sarge repeated. "Cortana, this is a HUGE detail! Why didn't you tell us what Halo did sooner?" The AI sighed and shook her head angrily.

"We have followed outbreak contaminant procedure to the letter. You all were with me every step of the way, as we managed the crisis."

"What crisis, these things have only been out for less than a day," Simmons snapped. "And we were only with you for like an hour!"

"Reds, I'm picking up movement," Cortana spoke up with alarm in her tone.

"Why would you hesitate to do what you have already done," the Monitor asked.

"We need to go, right now," Cortana urged.

"Donut, execute AI recovery procedure 24!"

"Yes sir," Donut replied. The pink Spartan swung his gun, hitting Grif in the back of the head and nearly knocking him unconscious.

"OW, what the fuck?" Donut moved to the control panel and pulled Cortana out and placed him in his head. Suddenly, four Sentinels floated upward, each with a beam on the reds.

"There is no choice: we must activate this ring. If you are unwilling to help, I will simply find another. Still, I must have the Index. Give you construct to me, or I will be forced to take her from you."

"Alright enough," Sarge shouted. "There's way too much talking and not enough action!"

"So be it," the Monitor replied. "Save their heads. Dispose of the rest." The Monitor disappeared in the golden rings as the Sentinels opened fire. The reds moved behind the glass, Sarge and Donut on one side and Grif and Simmons on the other.

"This sucks," Grif shouted. "Why didn't you just hand him the damn thing!"

"Doing that is a coward's way out," Sarge shouted back. "Plus the Covenant are on this ring! If they're on the ring and we fire it, then the Covenant still lives and it's the four of us versus them! Do you really want that Grif?"

"So instead of fighting just the Covenant, we have to fight the Covenant, the Flood, and the Monitor…I'd prefer fighting just one sir."

"Well too bad, today is a good day for you to die!" Sarge popped out from cover, screaming as he unloaded round after round into the Sentinels, causing them to explode and fall into the endless abyss before them in flaming heaps.

"We can't let the Monitor activate Halo. We have to stop him. We have to destroy Halo," Cortana stated.

"Destroy it," Sarge repeated with outright disgust. "This weapon could be a cornerstone in human evolution!"

"Sir, your theory is somewhat flawed," Simmons stated. "How is the human race supposed to evolve if we kill everything?"

"Simmons that's the dumbest thing you've ever asked! If we kill every sentient being in the galaxy, then there's only humans left, which means everything else has to start from scratch while humans evolve into super beings of INCREDIBLE feats! Or at least they'll be incredible to those less evolved beings."

"He's not serious is he," Cortana asked. The reds stayed silent. "Okay, well does anyone want to hear my plan?" The three reds, not Sarge, raised their hands. "Alright, according to my analysis of the available data, I believe the best course of action is somewhat…risky. An explosion of sufficient size will help destabilize the ring, and will cut through a number of primary systems. We need to trigger a detonation on a large scale, however. A star ship's fusion reactors going critical would do the job. I'm going to search what's left of the Covenant battlenet, and see if I can locate the Pillar of Autumn's crash site. If the ship's fusion reactors are still relatively intact, we can use them to destroy Halo."

"Alright, let's do that," Grif said.

"No, this weapon must be used for the sake of humanity!"

"Sarge," Cortana began. "If we use this ring to destroy everything else out there, then that means you're left on this ring with just Donut, Grif, Simmons, and the Flood. Now imagine a world where the Flood picked you all off one by one, and in some sadistic way of torture decided to leave you and Grif all by yourselves. What then?" Sarge stood silent, frozen stiff. "Well…?"

"Well I uh…I guess I'd try to blow up this ring with Grif on it."

"You wanna hear something great Sarge? The four of you reds are the only humans alive right? Bear with me now, you all go onto the Pillar of Autumn and overload its engine core, and then all have to make a mad dash while the timer is running down, otherwise you'll all die. Now, what if there's a chance Grif doesn't make it? That way you could kill thousands of zombies, an entire Covenant armada, _AND_ Grif in one huge explosion that also destroys this ring completely." Sarge was again, frozen solid.

"Alright men, you heard the lady! Let's move out!" Sarge turned and activated the switch to open the doors. The massive doors slid open, revealing Sentinels fighting off Covenant forces.

"Who wants to sit this one out?"

"Grif if I were you I would've learned to stop bitching and learn to fight," Sarge shouted before throwing his boot into Grif's rear. The orange Spartan flew forward a few feet and hit face first into the ground. The Covenant and Sentinels turned to Grif, then opened fire.

"Damn it Sarge," Grif shouted as he ran for the nearest bit of cover.

"Alright men, open fire!" Sarge and Simmons fired upon the Covenant and Sentinels while Donut lobbed grenade after grenade into enemy lines. Explosions, bullets, and plasma shots flew through the air, until the only living, or moving things left was the red team. "Good work Donut and Simmons. At this rate we might actually do well enough to pick up the slack we're forced to deal with because of Grif!"

"Screw you man! You just basically put a huge freaking bull's eye on me and almost got me killed!"

"Almost isn't good enough soldier," Sarge barked. "Now let's keep movin! Giant ring constructs that destroy galaxies don't destroy themselves ya know!" Sarge moved forward, taking point while the reds followed behind him.

Once outside, the reds watched as a war was raging before them. The Sentinels were zipping around, firing lasers down upon their enemies. The Covenant ran around, firing at everything that moved, letting plasma rain down from the surrounding Banshees, and massive explosions came from the Wraith tanks. Flood combat and infectious forms sewed through the ranks of the Covenant. The reds stood still, staring at the war before them.

"What the hell are we going to do about that," Grif shouted fearfully. "We can't stand a chance against that shit!"

"Sir, for once I think Grif is right," Simmons replied. "There's way too much action down there!"

"Huh…" Sarge muttered. The red commander looked up, seeing a Banshee flying closely. Sarge turned his head to a strange piece of technology which looked like ship engines pointing outward. "I'll be right back!" Sarge ran towards the engine and was launched forward into the air.

"Holy fuck," Grif shouted.

"SARGE!"

The red commander threw his arms out and latched to the wing of the Banshee, almost tipping the aircraft over. Sarge grunted as he tried to pull himself up with all his strength. The Elite pilot growled within his ship then tried spinning around and around to throw the Spartan off. Sarge held on tightly though and eventually grabbed a hold of the alien's ankle. With all of his might, Sarge pulled the Elite out and released the alien, letting him fall until it hit the ground with a bloody splat. Sarge quickly got into the Banshee then flew back to the Control Room.

"Oh, I got it," Grif exclaimed. The orange Spartan ran forward and launched himself from the gravity cannon. Grif hit Sarge's Banshee hard, but managed to hold on. "Great plan Sarge!"

"Ah you idiot! I was planning on ramming this ship through your face! Awe hell, now I guess I've gotta make room for Simmons and Donut…" Sarge flew over and landed the Banshee and got out quickly. "Alright everyone jump on."

"Uh…sir why'd you have to get out of the Banshee," Simmons asked.

"It's a glitch or something I've heard about," Sarge replied. "If someone jumps on top of a non-piloted Banshee then someone gets in and flies around, the person standing on it won't get thrown off."

"Uh sir, I think we can only do that in the sequel," Donut said.

"Just get on the damn ship, this ain't a luxury cruise!" The three reds all grabbed onto the Banshee's exterior. Sarge jumped into the cockpit and slowly started levitating off the ground. "Damn it Grif, you're too heavy!"

"Well excuse me for not being anorexic jackass," the orange shouted. The reds screamed as a blast from a Wraith tank nearly blew them out of the sky. "OH SHIT!"

"Taking evasive action," Sarge replied calmly, slowly dipping to the side. Two Banshees flew in behind the reds and started firing their plasma cannons. "Don't just hang there like worthless idiots! Fire back at them!" Simmons pulled out a pistol and began popping shots at the aircrafts. "Awe come on, don't you have something else like a rocket launcher?"

"No sir," Simmons replied, nearly getting hit with a plasma shot.

"We can't shoot because we're holding on for dear life," Grif snapped.

"Oh for the love of—Donut, come with me!" Sarge released the Banshee then flew backwards at breakneck speeds.

"Yes sir," Donut responded, "See ya guys!" Donut released the aircraft as well, being thrown backwards. Simmons and Grif looked at each other then screamed as their Banshee took a nosedive.

Sarge hit the first Banshee with a heavy thud, leaving a sizable dent in it. The aircraft shook violently upon impact, almost destroying the whole ship. Sarge had dug his fingers into the heavy metal and held himself to the top of the purple fighter. The red commander let go of the ship again, just enough to get behind the ship and grab the Elite's ankles. As he pulled the alien out, Sarge hooked his foot around one of the Banshee's wings, hanging upside down with an Elite in hand. The alien screamed with fear before Sarge let it plummet to the ground below. The red commander then pulled himself up and got into the cockpit of the Banshee.

While the events above were happening, Donut had also hit the second Banshee, clawing along the side as he tried to hold on. "My manicure!"

Donut moved to the rear of the ship then entered it forcefully. Once inside, Donut was lying on the back of an Elite which roared with shock, rage, and confusion. The pink Spartan started beating the Elite over the head with a series of blinding girly slaps. The Elite growled and screamed, trying to defend himself from the painless, but still annoying onslaught. Eventually, the alien who now had no hold of anything, slipped under Donut and flew down to the ground below. Donut managed to say in by having his legs extended and spread as far apart as possible with his feet pressing against the rear flaps of the ship. The pink Spartan grabbed the controls to the ship and moved to meet with Sarge.

The reds regrouped, with Grif hanging on the outside of the Banshee that Simmons now piloted. "Mission accomplished men," Sarge shouted.

"Why am I the only one not in a Banshee," Grif shouted.

"Well you could do what Sarge and I did," Donut suggested innocently.

"Yeah, fuck that!"

"Alright, according to Cortana we've got to screw up some pillars of energy that contribute to Halo's defenses…or some crap," Sarge replied." There's three of em, and two and a half of us."

"Two and a half," Donut questioned.

"Sir," Simmons began, "I think your math is off."

"I think not soldier! Grif counts as negative one and a half persons," Sarge snapped. "So thus he brings us down to two and a half soldiers! Don't worry though Simmons, your half will allow us to disable that first generator! You and Grif head there, I'll go to the second, and Donut will establish a point to meet right before the third one."

"Why doesn't Donut just take out the third one," Grif asked.

"The third one is the one most likely to have the most opposition! If we're going to take over that third generator we'll need all two and a half of this squad!" Simmons sighed with the annoyance of his superior's stupidity. "Alright, let's move it out gentlemen!"

The three Banshees broke apart, heading out throughout the area.

Simmons and Grif moved towards the location of the first generator, fighting off a small band of Covenant before making it inside.

"Thank god," Grif shouted, "It's fucking cold outside!"

"Quit complaining Grif," Simmons sniped. "Keep your eyes peeled for anything that might be a generator." Grif walked into the room without paying too much attention. As it would turn out, it didn't take much attention to spot what Grif saw.

"He Simmons, could that be a generator?" Simmons walked around the corner, looking in the same direction as Grif. The two reds saw a massive pillar of energy that was blindingly bright.

"Holy cow, that's a lot of energy," Simmons shouted. "To disrupt something like that we'd need some kind of super disruptor or something!"

"A super disruptor," Grif repeated, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me. I just left my super disruptor in my other armor!"

"Shut the fuck up Grif. Damn it, I seriously don't know how we're supposed to disrupt that thing!" Grif aimed a pistol then fired a single shot.

"That didn't work," the orange Spartan stated. He then grabbed a nearby plasma pistol and fired an overcharge shot. "That didn't work either…" Grif then walked away and came back with a rocket launcher and fired it. The rocket whizzed right through the energy tower and exploded against the far wall. "Well, I'm stumped."

"Hey wait…I have an idea," Simmons exclaimed. "Grif, walk into that pillar!"

"What, fuck you man!"

"Just do it you big baby," Simmons shouted. "It might be our only chance!"

"What if that thing fucking burns me alive or something?" Simmons remained quiet. "Well?"

"Shut up, I'm having the most wonderful daydream."

"Why don't you run into it?"

"You know what ya big baby, how about we both do it on the count of three," Simmons suggested.

"Wait, on three, or three and then go?"

"On three dipshit," Simmons replied, "It's always faster to go on three."

"Right, on three."

"One…two…THREE!" The orange and maroon Spartan ran forward and into the pillar of light. Their bodies were shaken, electrocuted, shields were immediately burnt out, and to top it all off: they were thrown back like ragdolls. Simmons flew through a sheet of glass while Grif crashed through a much more solid stone wall.

"Awe, fuck that hurt," Grif moaned.

"Yeah," Simmons agreed, sitting up as he held the side of his helmet. "That really hurt…" Suddenly, there were beams of lasers that rained down from above. "Oh shit, Sentinels!" Simmons ran and dove for cover, pulling out his weapon.

"Where the hell did they come from," Grif asked, firing a burst from his assault rifle.

"I don't know," Simmons shouted, "Just kill them already!"

Sarge stepped out of his Banshee and headed towards the second generator, his heavy boots thudding dully against the hard floor beneath him as he walked past countless mutilated and mangled Covenant corpses. Once inside, Sarge had his shotgun resting peacefully on his shoulder as he looked around the room. Things were too quiet for the red commander's tastes. He looked around the room again, then fired off to his right. A car alarm went off and a message popped up within his visor telling him: 'You startled the Flood!' Sarge chuckled as he heard the gurgled cry of the space zombies.

A wave of combat and infectious forms stormed through the room towards the red commander. Sarge jumped onto the nearest bit of higher ground and hurled a grenade. The explosion took countless of the popper zombies, and blew several of the combat forms into tiny chunks. Sarge fired his shotgun at least four times before switching to an assault rifle. The red commander let brass rain down upon his enemies. Bullets flew through the zombies, leaving chunks of them and pools of their green blood on the ground. Sarge jumped forward, using the head of the nearest human combat form as a means to jump behind the gang of Flood. Sarge threw another grenade right into the center of the mob which took out nearly the entire group. The few that remained Sarge just mowed down with precisely aimed waves of brass.

The red commander walked into the center of the room once the last body hit the floor and stared at a large pillar of light. Sarge hummed to himself, trying to think of the best course of action. The red commander had an idea, but looked around very quickly. With no one around, Sarge stepped forward. His grunted and groaned, holding in his pain as the energy screwed with his shields and started to electrocute and fry him. After a moment there was a loud, booming sound. Sarge stepped back, bending over in pain while trying to knock the ringing sound out of his ears. The red commander looked up, realizing he was surrounded by Flood zombies that came out of nowhere.

"Now where the sam hell did you all come from!"

Simmons fired at the nearest group of Sentinels, then made a break for it. There was only one of the tiny robotic ships chasing after him. Grif was running and screaming with terror as another Sentinel was chasing him while trying to zap him with its laser. Simmons and Grif saw that they were running towards each other and saw the enemies behind the other. Once they got closer, Grif quickly fell to his knees and pulled his head to the ground, covering it with his hands. Simmons jumped up, placing his foot on Grif's back, and launching himself up in the air. Unfortunately there was a ledge that cracked him in the face and he hit the ground on his back hard. The two Sentinels however crashed into each other, leaving a heaping pile of flaming metal. Grif looked up, seeing the mass of metal and fire a few feet in front of him.

"Come on Simmons," the orange Spartan pleaded, "we need to get out of here before more of those things show up out of nowhere!" Simmons stumbled to his feet, mumbling and sputtering random noises. "Come on dude!"

The two reds ran towards the exit and made it outside, seeing that there were now three Banshees waiting for them.

"Holy shit," Simmons exclaimed, "Where'd these extras come from?"

"Maybe god loves us," Grif replied. Simmons looked over at his partner, the look behind his helmet unconvinced. "Right, who the fuck cares, let's go!" The two reds got into Banshees then flew off.

Sarge was running at full speed before he fell onto his side, sliding across the ground while firing back at the wave of Flood coming at him. As he slid like a baseball star, a rocket flew over the red commander. Sarge quickly got up and ran with the Flood hot on his trail. Sarge turned, firing an uncontrolled burst of bullets that barely killed one combat form. Sarge turned back around, seeing a pair of tentacles coming for his face like a tree branch. The commander ducked, jammed the barrel of his gun into the combat form then fired. Sarge quickly spun around and fired through the combat form he now used as a zombie meat shield. It worked until he started getting overwhelmed like a riot guard in New York. Sarge however, stealthily placed a grenade within the body of the combat form then ran back. The grenade blew up, taking out a large number of alien zombies while causing Sarge to stumble forward. The red commander turned around and fired his shotgun at the nearest combat form, blowing its stomach out. Sarge sighed then turned around, staring down the double barrels of a rocket launcher.

"Oh come on," the red commander shouted. Sarge pulled his head back just as the combat form fired the weapon. Conveniently, time seemed to slow down as well. Sarge was in the process of doing a flip, while the rocket was flying back to the pursuing Flood zombies. Sarge threw his leg up with all his might, connecting it with the rocket launcher, "HE-YA!" The weapon flew into the air, out of the human Flood's hands. Sarge landed in a bent over position. In the blink of an eye, Sarge stood up and grabbed the rocket launcher with his free hand and aimed his shotgun at the head of the combat form just as the rocket exploded behind him, adding a cool affect.

"You've just been Sarged!" With a blast from his shotgun, nearly one third of the zombie was blown away. Sarge put his shotgun across his back then kicked the combat form before walking out, leaving rivers of green blood and gore behind him.

Simmons and Grif flew over the frozen area for an extraordinarily long time before they spotted Donut on the ground with a campfire going. The duo swooped down and landed softly on the ice before getting out. Simmons slid towards Donut on the ice while Grif slipped and fell on his ass.

"Hey guys," Donut greeted. "I found the third generator, but there's one problem: there's an army of Covenant on the other side."

"Right," Simmons scoffed, "an army, sure Donut. What is it? A squad of Elites?" Donut turned and pointed to a sniper rifle perched against a rock. The maroon soldier walked up and picked it up, zooming in through the scope.

In the distance there were countless Grunts and Jackals, four turrets, along with nearly two dozen Elites, including a golden one, two Wraith tanks and two Hunters. Simmons started sputtering and mumbling like a crazy man as Grif walked up.

"What is it," Grif asked. Simmons handed the sniper rifle. Grif looked through the scope then snapped his head up quickly. "Holy fuck, we're dead!"

"Well I had a plan worked out," Donut spoke up, "I mean we have three Banshees. We could at least do a hit-and-run strategy to eliminate the Wraiths right?"

"Hey, that might work," Simmons agreed. "Let's do it!"

The golden Elite walked around, its sword drawn and ready for fresh blood. A Grunt started sputtering and jumping around, pointing into the sky.

"Squeak, squeak, squeal," the Grunt shouted. Translation: "Look, ships coming in cold!" The golden Elite gave a strange look to the tiny alien. "Squeak…squeak squeak…" Translation: "Coming in cold…because it's fucking cold here…"

The golden Elite walked up and looked into the sky. It pulled out a pair of binoculars and zoomed into the distance. The life signs within told the Elite that the pilots were human.

"BLARG HONK, HONK, HONK, BLARG!" Translation: "They're humans! Fire upon them! Destroy those pigs already!"

Every single, married, committed, or dating alien turned their guns to the sky and began firing. A sea of plasma went up at the reds, hitting their Banshees multiple times and causing them to crash behind a distant hill. The golden Elite turned to two sky blue Elites.

"Honk, honk, blarg!" Translation: "Activate cloaks and make sure they're dead." The two Elites nodded then started to vanish from sight as they moved out.

Behind the hill, Grif pulled himself out of his Banshee and the snow, his armor smoking and slightly burnt. "Great fucking idea: let's go attack the army of Covenant waiting for us. Genius idea!"

"Hey, it was worth a shot," Simmons snapped, "God forbid you do any type of work!"

"Yeah, so I shouldn't do any type of work!" Donut groaned as he fell on his rear, shaking his head.

"You okay Cortana?"

"Not a chance," the A.I. replied with a dazed voice.

Suddenly, plasma shots came from nowhere, flying past the reds. The trio dove behind the cover of their crashed ships.

"What the hell was that," Grif shouted.

"How should I know," Simmons shouted back.

"Their Elites with cloaking devices," Cortana told everyone. "Basically they're invisible."

"Fuck," Grif shouted.

The two Elites moved through the snow, leaving prints in the frozen powder. Simmons realizing this, popping out of cover and started firing from his pistol. One of the bullets hit as there was a splatter of purple blood. The Elite screamed in shock and pain before firing at Simmons. The maroon soldier moved back behind cover. Donut fired a shot from his pistol straight through the Elite's head, killing it instantly as its cloaking device deactivated. The second Elite was nowhere to be seen or heard, which made the reds nervous. Suddenly, there was a loud roar mixed with a scream of pain. The trio turned around, seeing the second Elite flying out from behind with various holes all over its body. Sarge then came walking around the corner, flinging the blood of his arms.

"Sarge," Simmons shouted. "We're in serious trouble!"

"I know," Sarge replied. "I saw your little attack and I'm sorely disappointed in you for doing something so stupid Simmons! However, I'm willing to blame Grif if you tell me it's his fault."

"Yes sir," Simmons nodded.

"Alright, I've got a foolproof idea that's sure to work," Sarge exclaimed.

The golden Elite, now with the two Hunters on either side of him, stared at the mountain with a hardened glare. It shouldn't take this long for two stealth soldiers to take out a group of humans. Suddenly, there was an earthshaking explosion that blew up a turret being manned by a Grunt. There was another explosion, and another, followed by the rapid fire plasma shots of a Banshee. The Elite looked up, seeing plasma shots coming from thin air above him.

"HONK BLARG!" Translation: "Shoot the invisible ghost!"

Everyone started to fire, causing the plasma shots to stop. The aliens' fire apparently hit nothing, since there was no fire or crashing going on. Suddenly, one of the tanks exploded, killing two Grunts and one Jackal in the process. There was a grenade explosion after that, followed by a plasma grenade explosion.

"HONK HONK!" Translation: "What's going on?"

In the distance, Grif was handing Donut grenades as he was hurling them nearly a mile with extremely precise accuracy into the Covenant army. Simmons meanwhile had a rocket launcher with a stack of extra rockets which he aimed and fired into the enemy.

"This is actually a really good plan," Grif admitted. "I mean Sarge's Banshee has that cloaking device now, and we just hang back and blow shit up!"

"It's times like these that make me proud to server under such a brilliant man," Simmons added with a tearful voice as he reloaded his launcher.

"What about every other time?"

"I can't believe I follow the orders of some deranged idiot," Simmons muttered angrily. Grif laughed as he handed Donut another grenade.

"Hey Donut, you think you could throw that like a baseball," Grif asked.

"Sure thing," Donut answered. The pink Spartan took a pitcher's position then hurled a grenade as straight as an arrow.

A Hunter stood next to its partner, less than an inch between them. The plasma grenade Donut threw ignited and stuck between the two massive Hunters, sticking them together like Siamese twins. The Hunters looked at the grenade then up to each other before the grenade blew them in half.

"Holy shit," Simmons shouted.

"Dude," Grif yelled as he laughed. "That was awesome Donut!"

"Thanks," the pink Spartan replied gleefully.

The remaining Covenant forces: a handful of Grunts, two Elites, and the upper half of a Jackal were in panic, firing randomly into the air. Simmons fired a rocket, blowing up the remaining Grunts and finishing off the half Jackal. One of the two Elites fired into the sky, apparently hitting the cloaking device that shielded Sarge's Banshee. The Elites looked up at the purple ship that suddenly materialized. Sarge muttered angrily before firing a fuel rod shot to finish the two normal Elites. Sarge circled around, watching as the golden Elite stared him down.

"I don't like the way you're starin at me Cinderella!" Sarge swooped down, hovering about a foot off the ground, "Let's dance!"

The red commander hit the maximum thrust on the ship, flying forward as fast as allowed. The golden Elite planted its hooves into the snow and braced itself. The sound of a heavy, forceful smack was heard as Sarge collided with the golden Elite.

The Elite roared in anger, "Awe come on!"

The Elite plunged its sword through the Banshee, almost stabbing Sarge. The Elite moved its sword upward, almost striking Sarge. The red commander grumbled as he punched a hole through the Banshee. His fist hit the Elite in the face, almost knocking it off. The Elite grabbed the back of Sarge's armor and pulled him forward, smashing his head against the inside of the ship. Sarge pulled away just as the Elite stabbed through the Banshee again. Sarge moved back, about to fall out of the still fast moving ship.

The red commander looked past the golden Elite, "Uh oh."

Sarge quickly dropped off the ship and rolled once he hit. The Elite looked down with shock before turning its head, realizing he was heading for a stone wall. There was an explosion as the Banshee smashed into the wall, blowing the golden Elite to pieces. Sarge groaned as he rose to his feet, shaking the snow out from the joints of his armor.

The rest of the reds rejoined their commander who turned to them, "Alright…where's that last generator?" The reds pointed upward to a door hanging off of the stone wall. "Well…looks like we're gonna do some climbin…"

The reds spent all of twenty minutes (ten if it wasn't for Grif) before they finally got to the generator. Sarge, in a hurry to finish, threw Grif forward, causing him to be burnt and electrocuted. After the third generator was screwed up, the reds sighed with relief.

"Alright, let's get movin," Sarge ordered.

"Now we've got to climb down," Donut whined.

"There's a teleportation grid that runs throughout Halo. That's how the Monitor moves about so quickly. I learned how to tap into the grid when I was in the control center. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather…consequential expenditure of energy."

"That doesn't sound good," Simmons muttered.

"But I'm pretty sure I can take the needed energy from your suits without permanently damaging your shields. Needless to say, I think we should only try this once."

"Whatever," Grif shouted, "Just get us out of here!" The reds then teleported away within the golden rings that the Monitor used before.


	10. I Lost My Keyes

"The Covenant network is in absolute chaos! From what I've been able to piece together, their leadership ordered all ships to abandon Halo when they found the Flood, but they were too late. The Flood overwhelmed this cruiser and disabled it. The Covenant are terrified the Flood will repair the ship and use it to escape from Halo. They've sent in a strike team to neutralize the Flood and repair the ship for immediate departure. I've got a good lock on Captain Keyes' CNI transponder signal! He's alive! And the implants are intact! There's some interference from the cruiser's damaged reactor. I'll bring us in as close as I can."

The reds appear in a corridor, looking around before they realized that they were staring at the floor. A second later, they all cried out before landing on their backs.

"What the hell was that," Grif exclaimed, trying to move Donut's legs off his body.

"Ohh…I see, the coordinate data needs to be—," Sarge punched the side of his head as he rose to his feet, almost knocking himself back down again. "Right, sorry."

"Alright men…who lost their lunch?"

"I did," Donut and Simmons replied, raising their hands.

"I think I lost my spleen," Grif muttered.

"Who, except for Grif, is okay," Sarge asked.

"I'm good sir," Simmons replied oh so loyally, standing with his back straight.

"Me too sir, just let me get my energy drink on and we'll—,"

"_Reds, don't be fools,"_ a strained, tired voice said over the radio.

"Don't be fools," Grif repeated with confusion in his tone, "I thought that was what we were supposed to do since we take orders from Sarge!" The red commander socked Grif across the face, knocking the orange Spartan to the floor.

"_Leave me,"_ the voice continued before the signal cut away.

"Captain," Cortana shouted. "That was the captain! Reds, we've got to get moving right now!"

"The captain," Sarge exclaimed. "What're we waitin for, double time men!" Sarge ran forward all too boldly while the reds followed behind at their own pace.

The reds moved through the halls of the Covenant cruiser with no opposition whatsoever. A door opened up, and the reds stopped dead in their tracks with Grif and Simmons almost falling over the ledge into the ground below. Once the orange and maroon Spartan regained their composure, the whole team looked in wonder at the massive hole in the ship.

"What the hell happened," Grif asked. Suddenly, a plasma bolt almost struck Grif across the face, causing him to yelp with surprise. Donut and Simmons looked down, seeing Covenant soldiers and Flood combat forms battling it out.

"Wow," Donut breathed out.

"Let's not get mixed up with those guys," Simmons added.

"Eyes up boys," Sarge shouted, shortly before a shotgun blast rang out. The reds spun around, seeing a wave of Flood, in just about every form, rushing at them. "We got company! Open fire!" Sarge knelt down and fired his shotgun, dropping a combat form.

Simmons unloaded led from his assault rifle, popping various infectious forms. Donut hurled a grenade into the center of the Flood horde and popped combat forms off with his pistol. The grenade exploded, taking out a large number of the group of Flood, but even more came out to replace them. Simmons, Sarge, and Donut all squeezed their triggers, but their weapons clicked empty. After several more clicks, Sarge turned to his most hated soldier.

"Grif, you were in charge of reloading the weapons! Why are they empty!"

"Why are you _STILL_ relying on _ME_ to do stuff?" Sarge threw a strong kick to Grif's stomach. The orange Spartan screamed as he was thrown out of the doors and fell down to the ground below.

"Men, follow Grif," Sarge ordered before diving headfirst out of the Covenant battle cruiser. Simmons and Donut looked to each other before following after their commanding officer and the lazy guy.

The reds landed in a pool of a thick goo like substance that was hard to move and see through. Grif whipped his head around wildly trying to find one of his teammates.

"Oh crap," Grif shouted to himself. "Guys, where'd you guy!"

"Shut up, ya big orange baby," Sarge's familiar, harsh voice shouted.

"Huh, Sarge? Where are you?"

"Behind you," Sarge shouted with pure rage. Grif slowly spun around, seeing Sarge as if he were in slow motion. The man had his feet off the ground, fist above his head and descending slowly towards Grif. "God damn it! You were supposed to be hit by now!"

"Ha ha, this is sweet!" Grif jumped back, putting as much distance from him and Sarge before smacking the back of his head on a rock. "Oh, god damn it!"

"Attention men," Sarge ordered.

"Wait, how come I can hear you," Grif questioned.

"Because of the radios in our helmets Grif," Simmons' voice replied. "If you listen you can hear muffled gunfire up top."

"He's right," Sarge exclaimed. "I took a gander before we went splash and saw that there were more of the Flood zombies, and worst of all: Covenant Special Ops! I haven't see them since we were stationed back on Reach! Oh, those bastards are good I'll tell you what! They could stick a fly with a plasma grenade a mile away! Second only to those golden and silver Elites, but at least four times as common! I say we just wait it out and kill of the survivors!"

"Sarge, that's got to be the first plan I've ever agreed with," Grif stated.

"Oh man, it's just like college all over again," Donut stated happily. "Seriously, did you guys know this stuff is good for your hair?"

"Wait…" Grif began slowly. "Is he talking about what I think he's talking about…?"

Sarge, Grif, and Simmons ran out of the thick white substance, screaming with guns blazing upon the enemies. Donut's head popped out of the pool, watching his teammates fighting valiantly.

"Hey guys, I'm not done in here yet! Awe screw it…" The pink Spartan ran out of the pool and began firing his assault rifle.

Grif ran at an Elite in dark armor, firing his assault rifle at it. The alien shifted his body to the side, grabbed Grif's gun then pulled back as hard as it could, pulling Grif off his feet and sending the Spartan flying directly into a stone wall.

"Ow…"

Simmons ran up to the Elite from behind, trying to bash its skull in. The alien spun around, stopped Simmons' attack then punched the maroon Spartan in the gut. The kiss-ass whined before the Elite placed its hand on his shoulder, spun around and hurled him back into a pool of thick white stuff.

"AH! I feel like Paris Hilton drunk at a Saturday night party!"

Donut ran towards the Elite, but tripped as it fired at him. The Spartan knocked the Elite's feet out from underneath it, causing it to fall flat on its mandibles. Donut groaned as the Elite grabbed him by the back of his neck. Donut cried out and kicked the alien in the shins. The Elite howled and released Donut who landed on his rear. The Spartan quickly grabbed his assault rifle and fired away into the alien, piercing holes through its body before it fell backwards in a pool of white stuff.

"Alright, I did it!"

"That was disgraceful team," Sarge's voice boomed. Donut rose to his feet while Grif limped over next to him, and Simmons walked over with the thick gooey substance dripping from his armor. "It took three of you to take down one Special Ops Elite! While it only took FOUR Elites to make me run out of ammo!"

"Sarge, the last one is still alive," Simmons stated. Sure enough, Sarge was seated comfortably on the back of an Elite who was squirming and roaring with anger.

"I know that dummy! I haven't reloaded yet!" Sarge quickly threw in a shell into his shotgun, aimed it at the back of the alien's head then blew a gapping hole in its face. "See, it's not that hard!" Sarge stood up, putting more shells into his weapon. "Alright men, now let's go find a grav-lift so we can continue this mission!"

"I always hate these missions," Grif murmured. "We always get so off track…"

The Reds moved through the canyon, trying to find their way while encountering Flood forces and Covenant Special Ops. Thanks to blind luck and many explosions, the Reds seemed to be doing well thus far. The group got to an area that overlooked another battle between Covenant and Flood forces. Two Hunters as well as a few Grunts battled a small group of combat forms and a seemingly endless supply of carrier forms coming from the white goo that surrounded the Covenant. Unfortunately, the Reds were too far away to see any of this.

"Grif, get the sniper rifle," Sarge ordered. The orange Spartan picked up the weapon and zoomed in. "What's going on down there?"

"There are a bunch of those little popper things trying to attack two Hunters, and the Hunters keep trying to bash everything with their shields."

"Alright," Sarge muttered. "Sounds just like your kind of mission soldier! Get down there and die!" Sarge pulled his leg back, much to the shock and horror of Grif.

"No, no, no, no, no, no wait!"

Sarge kicked Grif in his rear, sending the orange Spartan down into the pool of gooey thickness below. Sarge chuckled to himself while Donut and Simmons looked down at the long drop. A Hunter growled as it fired its weapon at a carrier form. The fuel rod blast tore through the exploding alien zombie and went straight for the Reds.

"Awe hell," Sarge muttered.

"DIVE," Simmons shouted. The reds all jumped forward, Sarge diving, Simmons flailing, and Donut cannonball-ing, down into the pool below with three thick, heavy splashes.

"Move," Sarge shouted, hopping in strides to get out of the nasty goo that Donut loved so much.

Once on shore, Sarge was knocked back in by the swinging of a Hunter's shield. Simmons ran up, firing into the Flood with his assault rifle before moving behind a rock. Grif simply scampered out of the goo, trying his damndest to get it off his armor before an infectious form latched itself to his face. Donut ran out of the goo, flinging it into the eyes of a Hunter before throwing grenades into the mob of Flood advancing towards them.

There was a sudden explosion, sending a tower of goo upward. The Reds, Covenant, and Flood all watched as the goo washed over them. The Reds groaned, Grif gagged, as they slowly got themselves to their feet. In the middle of the Reds, Covenant, and Flood, Sarge staggered to his feet, shaking his head and letting out a disoriented sigh.

"Men…I believe I just blew up one of those big popper Flood things…right on top of a few grenades…" Sarge passed out and fell on his back.

The rest of the combatants got to their feet and commenced with killing each other in a bloody, explosive ridden firefight that lasted for about two minutes. When all was said and done, the Reds were victorious, but very exhausted. Suddenly, a loud yawn caused the three to spin around and aim their weapons at Sarge.

"I feel defeated, yet inexplicably rejuvenated! What happened men?"

"Sir," Simmons began, "You made a big ass explosion in that pool of Covenant ship coolant-jizz stuff and then you passed out."

"So I _was_ defeated," Sarge exclaimed. "And yet I got some shut-eye in, so let's call it a win-win boys. Let's move!"

The Reds pushed forward, moving up to the grav-lift and back inside the Covenant battle cruiser. Once inside, the Reds took note of all the dead bodies. Donut whimpered, Grif knew they would die, Simmons looked to his god, and Simmons' god, Sarge, just continued forward.

"_I gave you all an order,"_ the voice from before shouted. A second later and he was screaming with pain.

"Captain," Cortana screamed. "Sarge, you've got to hurry!"

"We would," Sarge replied, tapping his foot with annoyance. "If we didn't have a slow-poke who doesn't even know the definition of exercise!"

"Hey," Donut snapped, "I've been trying to lose weight thank you very much!"

"Not you Donut," Sarge barked. "I was talking about Grif!" To add meaning, Grif just caught up with his team, panting heavily while holding his weight up by pressing his hand against the wall.

"Oh, okay. Cause I'm still on this awesome diet, and I think I've been losing some weight. What do you guys think?"

"I think we should get a fucking move on," Cortana shouted.

"Alright," Sarge replied. "Don't get your virtual panties in a bunch!"

The Reds made all haste to move through the Covenant ship, fighting through waves of Covenant and Flood alike. They had been running for what seemed like half an hour.

"Do you know where you're going," Grif asked Sarge. "Cause all these places look the fucking same!"

"Shut up Grif," Sarge ordered, stopping in order to punch the lazy Spartan in the stomach. "Double time men! The captains close! I can feel it!"

The Reds moved towards another door, revealing a large, open room with a giant ball of Flood in the middle. The Reds all exclaimed or groaned with disgust before Sarge moved forward first with his shotgun raised.

"No human life signs detected," Cortana stated with a horrified tone.

"Well shit I could've told you that," Simmons muttered.

"The captain…he's one of them…"

"Great," Grif said with a casual tone. "We just need to get some codes off him right? That should be easy enough."

"Actually Grif, the codes are in implants within his brain," Simmons replied.

"So how the fuck are we supposed to get them," Grif shouted.

"We could try burning it with a flamethrower," Simmons suggested.

"One, we don't have a flamethrower. Two, have you ever seen burnt skulls? Seriously, Google it man!"

"Google is overrated," Sarge protested loudly as he turned to his men. "Nowadays it's all about Bing! The new search engine from Microsoft!"

"Yeah right, I can hardly find what I'm looking for half the time on Bing Images," Grif shot back. "Plus Bing doesn't even have a cool slogan. With Google all you have to say is 'Google that shit man.' It's so easy!"

"You're absolutely right Grif," Sarge said.

"Wait…" Simmons and Donut snapped their heads towards Sarge. "I am?"

"Bing doesn't have any type of slogan like, 'Google it.' So that's why I took the liberty of making my own! I say 'Bing it, or wing it!'"

"Excellent slogan sir," Simmons stated.

"That ya Simmons. I always knew I had a knack for slogans. That's why if the military fell through I was gonna go into advertisement!"

"I was gonna go into modeling," Donut chimed in cheerfully.

"Nobody cares," Grif and Simmons said simultaneously.

"GUYS," Cortana shouted. "Cant we _PLEASE_ focus on the mission for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES?"

"Cortana is absolutely right," Sarge exclaimed. "We need to get the captain's neural implants!"

"But how," Simmons asked. "The implants are all the way back into his head, and I don't think we have anyway of getting to the back of his head…do we?"

"No," Grif snapped. "We don't, because the back of his head is about three feet back in that giant Flood turd!"

"Well then it's time we DUG three feet into the back of that Flood turd," Sarge stated as he charged forward. "HEEEEEEEYYYAAAAAAAA!"

The Red commander impaled his arm through captain Keyes' face. The rest of the Reds grimaced and groaned with disgust. Sarge started digging his arm around, humming casually as he did.

"Sir, that's just downright disgusting," Grif stated.

"Shut up Grif, I almost got it!"

"You probably destroyed it! I mean you're up to your shoulders in that thing!"

"Someone hold this," Sarge ordered, holding his shotgun out. "Someone who's not Grif."

"I'll do it," Donut offered as he skipped towards his officer.

The pink Spartan took the shotgun from Sarge as the latter punched his other arm through the giant Flood brain. The Reds groaned and gagged as Sarge ripped open a hole in the front of the mass and stuck his head inside.

"Damn it, I can't see anything! Donut, give me my shotgun! I need a flashlight pronto!"

Donut handed the weapon back to his commander. As soon as Sarge placed his hand on the weapon, the reds heard the doors opening. They snapped their heads around, seeing a squad of Covenant Special Ops storming into the room.

"Yipes," Grif shrieked as he fled for the nearest bit of cover.

"Move men," Sarge ordered as he dove headfirst into the center of the Flood biomass.

Donut fired into the alien forces with his assault rifle, taking down two Grunts and an Elite before he made a dash for cover. Simmons got behind a pillar and fired a few bursts and hurled a grenade. Grif was muttering how he wished he had a sandwich right now when something landed by his feet. The orange Spartan looked down, seeing a blue flaming ball.

"Oh shit!"

Grif stepped back and kicked the grenade away which, for some reason, actually worked. The grenade bounced off the Flood biomass, which for some reason didn't stick either, and clung itself to an Elite's face. The alien cried out before a bullet whizzed through its head a split second before the grenade exploded.

"Excellent work Donut," Sarge's muffled voice called out from within his fleshy cover. "Way to steal Grif's kill!"

"Kill joy," Grif shouted.

"Sir, they're thinning out sir," Simmons stated. Just then, another door opened up and a squad of Elites, Grunts, and Hunters all turned their attention to the Reds.

"Scratch that," Grif replied with a grim tone. "We're screwed…"

The Covenant squad fired their weapons at all three Reds, forcing them to remain behind cover without being able to make a clear shot. Both sides were too busy to notice that the Flood biomass was rocking back and forth from. Sarge had began thrashing back and forth from within the biomass. One of its tentacles snapped, allowing it to rock more freely. Sarge continued going back and forth until all the tentacles from the ceiling snapped, also causing the ones from the bottom to break off too. The biomass rolled down towards the Covenant squad which was standing over the corpses of the previous squad before them. Donut quickly came from out of cover and hurled a grenade in the center of the squad, right as the Flood biomass started to roll over a few Grunts. The explosion from the grenade Donut threw caused the grenades from the other Covenant forces, dead and alive, to explode, creating one cataclysmic explosion that killed everything caught within its fiery, destructive path.

Simmons peaked around the corner then turned to Donut, "Nice job man!"

"Yeah," Grif agreed, "that was one hell of a toss! Hey, where's Sarge?"

A chunk from the Flood biomass began to twitch, causing the Reds to jump and yelp with fright. Sarge threw the chunk off his back, his armor scorched with a few tiny pieces falling off, and there was a crack on his visor.

"Yeow…why am I bein blown up so much today?"

"Sir," Simmons shouted. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just fine…I think…" Sarge fell on his back, unable to move. "Nah, I'm screwed…" Just then, the doors on the opposite side of the room opened and a horde of Flood came rushing out. "On second thought," Sarge exclaimed suddenly. "DOUBLE TIME MEN!"

The Reds quickly ran out of the room, being pursued by an army of Flood. On their way, they also picked up a few Covenant forces which helped thin out a few of the zombies before they were overrun by them. The Reds came into a hanger where they were immediately fired upon by Covenant forces.

"There," Donut shouted. "We can use those Banshees!"

"There's only three of them," Grif stated over the gunfire. The Reds ducked as a fuel rod blast exploded above them. They turned around and saw the Flood chasing after them.

"Looks like someone is gonna have to ride on the outside," Sarge screamed. "Not it!"

"Not it," Simmons added quickly.

"Not it," Donut repeated.

"Awe come on," Grif exclaimed.

"Sorry Grif, but the UNSC is very clear in regard to the 'not it' methodology for making decisions. Wait a second…I'm not sorry! Get a move on men! Geronimo!" Sarge jumped two stories down and rolled with a loud, heavy thud as he ran towards the Banshee.

"I never got to see ," Donut shouted as he once again cannon balled down, and yet somehow managed to roll safely before jumping into the Banshee.

"Fuck this shiiiiiiiiit," Simmons and Grif shouted as they leaped down. Simmons grunted as he rolled, but Grif simply face planted into the ground.

"Come on Grif," Simmons urged, jumping into the Banshee. "We've gotta move!"

"Yeah," the orange Spartan groaned. "Sure…" He limped over and clung tightly onto the wing of the Banshee. "Alright…I'm set and read-EEEEEE!" Simmons went full speed in order to catch up with Sarge and Donut.

The three Banshees, and one Spartan screaming with terror as he held on for dear life, flew through the night sky.

"So where to next," Simmons asked.

"We're heading back to where it all began boys," Sarge replied with a deep tone.

"We're going back to Reach," Donut asked.

"No idiot! We're going back to the Pillar of Autumn! We're gonna blow that puppy sky high and take this ring with it! It's the Fourth of July and we don't gotta pay for fireworks boys! Now that's my type of holiday! Blowing stuff up without any consequences whatsoever, just like Michael Bay! Except he had to pay for it by not having Megan Fox in his third installment of Transformers!"

"Wait, seriously," Grif questioned. "Then why the hell would anyone watch that movie!"

"The giant fighting robots and explosions," Simmons answered matter-of-factly.

"Right," Grif agreed. "Duh."

Wow, this chapter had a lot more Red vs. Blue references than previous chapters.

About the grenade bouncing off the biomass, that's actually true. It doesn't really stick to it. I've tried it…accidently stuck my brother in the face during coop while doing it too lol. Also, just for those of you who don't know, Megan Fox was indeed fired by Michael Bay and will not be showing up in Transformers 3. Why couldn't they fire Shia Labeouf instead? I'd like to cram a grenade down his throat I would! Leave reviews please =D


	11. The Marathon Runners

A massive spaceship lied ruined and charred, resting on the edge of a the beach shore. About one kilometers away, three Banshees and an orange Spartan clinging to one of the ships' wings swooped in.

"This thing is falling apart," Grif shouted with a panicked tone.

"Ah shut up," Sarge snapped dismissively.

"We're not gonna make it," the orange Spartan continued.

"I said shut up!"

"Pull up, for the love of god," Grif's voice became extremely high and shrill as the Banshee started to droop down. "PULL UP!" The Banshee hit just below an empty escape pod hatch. "You asshole, you did that on purpose!"

"Damn straight," Sarge's voice replied before his hand clasped on the ledge, pulling himself up.

"Well could you at least help me?"

"No can do compadre," Sarge answered as he stood up in the empty hatch. "You're responsible for yourself. I had to save you after you fell asleep on Simmons' Banshee, so you owe me!"

"Yeah right, how many times have you tried to kill me in the past?"

"Simmons, Donut," Sarge shouted, ignoring Grif as he clawed his way up to the empty hatch. "Stop floatin around and get in here! I can't expect to do this mission with just Grif! That'd hold me back, and I'd have to do this mission twice!"

"Uh…I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to get in there sir," Simmons called through the radio.

"Just do what I did," Sarge snapped. "Wait until you're at least two feet away, jump out and then latch on to the ship!"

"Or you could do what I did," Donut's voice came next to Sarge. The Red commander snapped his head over, and saw the pink Spartan standing next to him. "Just put the Banshee in reverse and back in then jump out."

"Donut that's genius thinking," Sarge exclaimed. "Simmons, get down here pronto!"

"Y-yes sir." After a few moments of shaky flying, Simmons finally got into the ship safe and sound.

"We need to get to the bridge. From there, we can use the captain's neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship's fusion engines. The explosion should damage enough systems below it to destroy the ring."

"You heard the lady," Sarge barked. "Check your weapons and see what ya got!"

Sarge had his signature shotgun with a pistol on his thigh. Simmons had an assault rifle and pistol. Donut had an assault rifle and plasma rifle. Grif was weaponless due to him having to cling to a Banshee's wing for nearly two hours.

The Reds moved through the ship and down a hallway which wasn't dark at all for some unexplained reason. Suddenly, a swarm of infectious forms came crawling from the ground. Sarge and Donut fired into the swarm, popping them all like air filled pimples.

"Do you guys hear that," Simmons asked. "Sounds like lasers…"

"It means those Sentinel guys are back," Donut stated with a tone of shock.

"Right-oh, Grif, get down there and die with very little to no dignity!"

"Fuck that!" Sarge sighed then aimed his shotgun directly to Grif's face. "God damn it…" The orange Spartan ran up and climbed down a ladder. Once on the ground, he realized he was surrounded by Flood carrier forms. "Son of a-,"

There was a chain reaction of booming pops, followed by a series of laser beams. There were more explosions, and then nothing but silence. Sarge looked to Simmons, who looked to Donut, who looked back at Sarge.

"Okay, it's all clear now," Grif's voice called from below.

"What the sam-diggity—how'd you survive!"

"Simple, I just threw some of those big popper things at the Sentinels. You know for a group made by an allegedly superior race, these things are really fucking stupid."

Sarge muttered then went down the ladder, followed by Simmons and Donut. The group moved down the hall past the pools of green blood and flaming wreckage, until they turned a corner where a human combat form stood with the barrel of its shotgun directly into Grif's face.

"Shit!" The orange Spartan dove to the side as a blast rang out. The combat form fell over and the barrel of Sarge's shotgun was smoking.

"There, now that's two ya owe me!" The Reds came to a pair of locked doors that were sealed shut from the crash. "We need to get through this door Simmons! Can you open it or not?"

"I don't think so sir. It's not a problem with the locks, so I can't press a few buttons and open it. If anything it'll have to be broken open with brute force…"

"Say no more," Sarge exclaimed gleefully. The Red commander grabbed Grif who began stammering fearfully before Sarge smashed him through the doors headfirst. "Sort of like that?"

"Yeah…something like that…"

"Owie," Grif murmured. The Reds moved down the corridors until they came to the cafeteria area. "Sweet! Tell me there's food, oh lord, tell me there's food!"

"Grif, we haven't been on this ship in nearly a month," Simmons stated. "All the food is either old and moldy or eaten up by now."

"The only things on this ship are Sentinels and Flood," Grif snapped. "What're they going to eat? Lugnuts and flesh?" Suddenly, a plasma grenade landed on the shelf right next to Grif. "Oh…shit…" The orange Spartan dove under a table as the grenade exploded.

"Special Ops," Sarge shouted. "Watch out for their accuracy with grenades!"

"I'll show them accuracy," Donut snapped.

Simmons ran with Sarge, offering cover fire from his assault rifle. The Red commander stood behind a wall and turned around to fire a few rounds from his pistol. Donut was running around in the open had gotten into a grenade throwing match with an Elite. The duo threw countless grenades at each other, and somehow even managed to stick two plasma grenades together. The pink Spartan got lucky whenever a Grunt walked in front of his tossing match and fled towards his commander. The Elite cried out with anger as the Grunt exploded next to him, killing them both.

Simmons and Sarge finished off the remaining Covenant forces just as Grif crawled out from under the table.

"Is it over…?"

"You big baby," Sarge muttered as he moved forward.

Once in the bridge, Sarge placed Cortana back into the control system, allowing her tiny purple avatar to pop up.

"I leave home for a few days and look what happens," Cortana stated sarcastically.

"Yeah, the woman isn't here to clean up," Grif muttered. Sarge threw his leg back, kicking Grif in the shin. "Ow!" Simmons then elbowed Grif in the ribs rather hard. "OW! What the fuck!"

"This shouldn't take long," Cortana sighed. "There," a timer reading fifteen minutes popped up on the screen. "That should give us enough time to make it to a lifeboat and put some distance between ourselves and Halo before the detonation."

"Right, if we only have fifteen minutes we're gonna have to triple time it men!" Sarge reached forward to unplug Cortana from the control systems.

"_I'm afraid that's out of the question really."_

"Oh hell," Sarge and Cortana groaned.

Simmons and Donut had their weapons aimed as they scanned the bridge while Grif only looked around fearfully. _"Ridiculous!_ _That you would imbue a warship's AI with such a wealth of knowledge! Weren't you worried it might be captured? Or destroyed?"_

"Is that the Monitor," Donut asked.

"He's hacked into out helmet's radio somehow," Simmons replied.

"He's in my data arrays too, a local tap," Cortana stated.

"Hey if she were real I'd tap her too," Grif muttered to Simmons. The comment got a punch to the back of the head from Sarge. "OW! Come on!"

"_You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all of our lost time,"_ the floating blue ball continued._ "Human history, is it? Fascinating._ _Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of its categorization!"_

"And I thought you were a nerd Simmons," Donut stated.

"Excellent burn Donut," Sarge replied.

"Oh come on, Donut makes an obvious joke and you say good job, while I make a joke and get abused! Bullshit man…"

"_And to think that you would destroy this installation, as well as this record. I am __SHOCKED__. Almost too shocked for words."_

"Then how about shutting the fuck up," Simmons screamed. There was a sharp beeping noise and the timer froze.

"He stopped the self destruct sequence…" Cortana stated.

"Hey, when my computer freezes I just hit it a few times," Grif chimed.

"_Why do you continue to fight us, Reclaimers? You cannot win! Give us the construct, and I will endeavor to make your death relatively painless and-,"_

"At least I still have control over the comm. channels," Cortana stated gratefully.

"Where is that annoying blue guy," Sarge asked with his temper and blood pressure rising.

"The Monitor is in engineering…he's trying to take the core offline to prevent us from blowing up Halo! Even if I could restart the countdown…I don't know what to do…"

"How many Grifs would you need to crack the engine's shields?"

"Four," Cortana replied, heavily annoyed. Sarge muttered with disappointment. "However, I was going to suggest using a grenade or rocket to blow them up instead."

"That could work sir," Simmons stated.

"Right-oh, let's move men!"

"There's an armory on the way," Cortana added. "I'm coming with you guys." Sarge nodded then unplugged the AI and placed her in the back of his head.

"Let's go men! We've got a ring to destroy!"

The Reds moved through the crashed ship as quickly as possible, encountering Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels all warring against one another. Moving as quickly as they could, the Reds made it to the armory with minimal damage, but extremely exhausted from so much running and dodging gunfire.

"Alright men, we're in the armory! Simmons, Donut, pick up a rocket launcher and carry as many rockets as you can! Grif, get one of those empty assault rifles and pick up a few of the bullets lying on the ground!"

"Why do I still NOT have a weapon after this far into the ship?"

"Because you haven't picked one up numb-nuts! We've killed plenty of enemies all of whom have dropped weapons which you could pick up!"

"Oh save it Sarge," Grif snapped.

"Sir," Simmons called out, "Donut and I are set and ready."

"Good, now let's go blow up this ship and possibly a floating blue ball!" The Reds followed their insane leader back through the armory and towards engineering.

As the doors opened, there was a combat form, ready to strike them. Before the Reds could react, the zombie was gunned down by a hail of laser beams. There was a familiar, and annoying, humming sound as the Monitor swooped down into view in front of the Reds.

"Hello Reclaimers, so nice to see you all again."

"Damn it," Sarge and Cortana muttered simultaneously.

"Are you ready to hand over your construct," the Monitor asked.

"Keep dreamin pinball," Sarge snapped. "Now get out of our way! We got some blowin up to do!"

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that Reclaimer," the Monitor said. Suddenly, four Sentinels flew into view behind the Monitor, with many more floating all around the room in front of the Reds.

"I got an idea," Sarge whispered. Without warning, the Red commander rushed forward and jumped onto the Monitor.

"Wh-what are you doing Reclaimer?" The floating ball started moving back from the door and into the air with Sarge clinging onto it.

"Sir," Simmons shouted.

"Start blowin up those engine things," Sarge shouted as he fired his shotgun at the Sentinels who were eager to save the Spark. "Ha-ha, blamo! Come on ya floating trash buckets! This way! I'm on your floating ball of a leader!"

"Reclaimer, I must insist you get off me this instant!"

"Ah shut up," Sarge snapped, punching the Monitor in its eye.

"Let's move guys," Simmons shouted as he took point.

The Monitor spun around rapidly, trying to throw Sarge off of its face. The Red commander simply fired round after round from his shotgun, blowing Sentinels into flaming heaps of metal. The Monitor stopped then tried shaking its body.

"Reclaimer, this is most unnecessary!"

"Maybe so, but it keeps you out of the way you overgrown ornament!"

"I say, there's no reason for such language," the Monitor snapped.

Simmons, Grif, and Donut came out of the first door on the second floor. Simmons ran over and started pressing a few buttons on a nearby terminal. There was a loud sound as the shaft unlocked from the engine core.

"Alright, someone jump on and throw a grenade in there."

"I'll do it," Donut offered, quickly running and jumping onto the moving pillar.

"Alright, while he's doing that Grif, come with me to the second one."

"Oh come on man, can't I just offer you guys like cover fire or something?"

"Would you actually do it," Simmons questioned. Grif sighed with defeat and followed Simmons.

Donut watched and waited for the engine core to open as he clutched his grenade tightly. Once the flaps opened, Donut hurled the grenade right into the slot, blowing that fusion core up. The shaft started slowly moving back towards the now destroyed core. Donut hopped back up on the platform where Simmons and Grif had just finished off the second one.

"Alright, halfway there guys," Simmons said. "Just two more and we're done."

"YEEEEE-HAAAAW!" Sarge shouted as the Monitor was zipping around with surprising speed in an attempt to throw the Red commander off.

"Reclaimer! Get off me this instant!"

"No chance gumball," Sarge snapped.

The Red fired a shot into a Sentinel who was flying towards him, reducing it to a flaming pile of scrap. There was a cataclysmic explosion that shook the entire ship, causing various explosions from the roof above.

"Sarge, looks like your boys did it," Cortana announced. "There's a service lift at the top of the engine room! It leads to a class-7 service corridor that runs along the ship's dorsal structure. Hurry Reds!"

"Well it's been fun blue ball," Sarge stated as he grabbed the Monitor with both hands.

"What're you-," Sarge planted his feet on the platform as his men came running towards him. The Red commander screamed as he hurled the Monitor with all his might towards a wall. The ball hit with a ding then fell to the ground where a ton of flaming debris fell on him. "Ha-ha!"

"Excellent work sir," Simmons said quickly, "Now let's get the fuck out of here!"

"Agreed," Sarge snapped. The Reds moved across the platform and through some halls before they got to where the service elevator was supposed to be.

"What the fuck," Grif shouted. "We're gonna die!" Just then, the elevator descended, revealing a Special Ops Elite with a squad of Grunts carrying fuel rod cannons. "Come the fuck on! Really?"

"I finally found you," the Elite exclaimed. "Now, after pursuing you monkeys for so long, I'll finally have my chance to-," Sarge popped a Grunt in the head with a pistol, causing it to fall to the ground. Its gun started to burn, causing the other Grunts and the Elite to look down. "Oh son of a bi-,"

The one explosion went off, causing a chain reaction of the other Grunts' fuel rod guns in one grand explosion that incinerated all the bodies within the elevator. Sarge casually walked into the elevator while the other Reds just shrugged to each other and followed.

"Anyone know what that was about," Grif asked. "According to the subtitles in my helmet that Elite was talking about pursuing us or something."

"Who cares," Sarge snapped. "We should be focusing on a way out of here! Cortana, do what you always do: save our asses with information only an AI would know."

"Well I'll be damned, one of you actually appreciates what I do. Analyzing…the ship's inventory shows one Longsword fighter still docked in Launch Bay 7. Activating final countdown timer, when it reaches zero, the engines will detonate. The explosion will generate a temperature of almost one hundred million degrees. _Don't_ be here when it blows."

"Oh you can count on that," Grif replied.

"But how're we supposed to get across this ship in five minutes," Donut asked fearfully.

"This service elevator is going to take us up to a Warthog station. There'll be plenty for you all."

"Shotgun."

"Shotgun," Simmons said, "Fuck!"

"Shotgun's lap," Donut added.

"Fuck," Grif snapped.

"Negative men," Sarge barked. "I'm taking point in the first Warthog. Grif, you'll drive a second one behind me with Simmons as your gunner and Donut as your passenger."

"Wait, this mission is probably the most suicidal thing we've ever done and you're volunteering to take point? What's the catch?"

"No catch Grif, we gotta make it out of this thing alive. I can clear the path ahead by running over every living thing I see! Then Simmons can mop up the rest with the gun."

"What about Donut," Grif asked.

"He's the passenger," Sarge replied. "He can still throw grenades and fire rocket launchers right?"

"Hell yeah," the pink Spartan exclaimed happily.

"Then it's settled." The elevator came to a stop. "Get movin men!" Sarge ran into the Warthog station, grabbing the first jeep he could find. "Mount up…in a different one!"

Grif, Simmons, and Donut got into another Warthog, just as Sarge started pulling out. Grif followed Sarge as they both got out of the station just as it was engulfed by an explosion.

Outside the station, Covenant and Flood forces were battling each other. Sarge simply made a path by running through everything while Simmons in the other Warthog picked off the stragglers. The Reds moved up a hill, running through a few dozen Flood infectious forms before getting over the hill. There was a lower tunnel with Flood combat forms standing at the top of the entrance. Sarge went straight down into the tunnel while Grif swerved to the right. Sarge ran through two Flood carrier forms and pushed on through to the other side of the tunnel where he ramped his Warthog over Grif's, landing a little sloppily.

"I said I was taking point Grif," Sarge snapped. "Don't get ahead of me ever again!"

"You don't want me to get ahead of you just because you hate me and you hope to leave me behind on this exploding ship right?"

"That's the dream," Sarge called back, now through the radio.

"What about us sir," Simmons asked dreadfully.

"A necessary sacrifice for the greater good of eliminating the laziest person ever to wear the uniform! And by uniform I mean the heavily armored uniform equipped with advanced shielding technology that makes us the most bad ass things ever to be created by the military!"

"Amen to that," Donut shouted.

By now the Reds made it halfway through the second service tunnel with only 1.4 kilometers to go. Once out of the service tunnel, the Reds were caught in the crossfire of a dozen Sentinels and Flood combat forms.

"Seriously, why does everything have to be fighting," Grif shouted. "They're all going to die anyway unless we get to the ship!"

"Grif quiet," Sarge shouted as he started turning the steering wheel sharply to the side to straighten out the vehicle. "If the enemy hears you, they'll steal the ship before we can even get to it!"

"No they won't, because we're in fucking jeeps that go over a hundred and fifty miles per hour you moron! Nothing can run that fast!"

The Reds now made it to the third tunnel with a kilometer to go and nearly four minutes to make it there. Sarge pushed through the Flood, Sentinels, explosions and fire as he headed through the curvy tunnel. The Reds moved through many rooms and tunnels as the timer slowly ran down.

A Grunt came waddling out of a hall, sighing to himself. "Ugh…good thing that the food nipple will be waiting for me at the starship, cause man; I worked up a big, grunty, thirst!" The Grunt looked down his left, seeing two speeding Warthogs coming right at him. "Crickey!" The Grunt started firing its plasma pistol at the Reds.

"Son of a bitch," Grif shouted as he swerved to avoid the blasts. "You little asshole!"

"Bite me," the Grunt shouted as the group zoomed by. Donut turned around and hurled a grenade directly towards the Grunt. "No! Please no!" The grenade stuck to the Grunt's face and it cried out just before it exploded.

"Sarge, up ahead there's a gap in the trench! At top speeds we should be able to make it!"

"Grif," Sarge shouted, "Put the pedal to the metal!"

Both Reds floored the gas, reaching top speeds in their Warthogs. The Reds cleared the gap and continued down another tunnel. Sarge sped forward, but an explosion caused Grif to slow down a bit before going after Sarge. The orange Spartan moved through the smoke and fire, revealing that they were at the hanger and a barricade was set up. Sarge was already out of his Warthog, standing in the middle of the crossfire between Covenant and Flood.

"Get moving boys," Sarge shouted. "Simmons, get the ship started!"

Grif, Simmons and Donut all bailed out of the vehicle. Simmons and Grif ran side by side straight for the ship while Donut covered them with explosives. Sarge continued firing at the aliens stupid enough to get close to him while Donut slowly walked past him. Sarge backed up slowly with Donut watching his rear…(A/N: um…I think there may be a pun intended here).

Simmons got on the ship, ran towards the cockpit and started pressing buttons and flipping switches. Grif stood at the top of the ramp of the ship, panting heavily from all the running before he turned around, seeing a swarm of Flood charging towards him.

"Simmons, gun now!" The maroon Spartan turned his head, seeing the alien zombies. Simmons tossed Grif an assault rifle. The orange Spartan grabbed the weapon, spun around and started unloading shells into the mob of alien zombies. "Get some bitches!"

"Sir," Simmons called through the radio over the many explosions, ship engines, and Grif's gunfire. "The ship is ready when you are!"

"Roger," Sarge shouted as he blew an Elite's stomach out. "Donut, get to the ship pronto!"

"Yes sir," Donut screamed. "WAAAAAAAAAHH!"

The pink Spartan made all panicking haste towards the ship. Sarge fired two more rounds from his shotgun then hauled ass. Grif stopped firing once most of the Flood combat forms were dead, waving Donut to hurry the hell up.

"We got thirty seconds," Simmons shrieked with a shrill tone.

"Come the hell on Donut," Grif shouted. The pink Spartan ran up the boarding ramp just as Sarge came into view. "Fuck, Sarge move it soldier!"

"You tell me what to do and I'm going to boot your ass back on this ring Grif," Sarge screamed as he fired a round into a nearby combat form.

The commander stepped onto the ramp just as Simmons decided to take off at full speed. Luckily the ramp closed which caused Grif and Donut to be thrown into the back of the ship, pancaking Sarge between their weight and the raised boarding ramp. Simmons pushed the throttle as hard as it could go, pushing through the atmosphere just as the Autumn started to explode.

Simmons flew the ship outside of the ring just as a huge chunk of it flew out and broke the ring in two. The construct started falling apart piece by piece as the explosion from the Pillar of Autumn shook the ring apart into sections.

Inside the fighter ship, an alarm was going off saying 'ENGINE TEMP CRITICAL.' Simmons turned the engines off, leaving the ship to float within the endless abyss of space.

"Get off me," Sarge shouted as he pushed Grif and Donut both to the floor. "Simmons, next time wait until I'm in my seat and safely buckled up before you take off!"

"We had like fifteen seconds by the time you got on and it takes nearly twice that amount of time to safely get through a planet's atmosphere! This whole ship could've been burnt to a crisp or exploded because I pushed it so hard!"

"Next time don't do that Simmons," Grif snapped as he slowly turned himself right side up.

"Anyone fancy a look," Donut asked quietly, staring out the window.

The Reds moved towards the window, staring out at the broken construct. There were a few large fragments which were drifting and spinning away from each other slowly. Like Sarge striking Grif, a large piece came out of nowhere and collides with another which smashed it in two. And for some unexplained reason, there were explosions triggering all over the remains of the ring. Halo had been soundly destroyed.

"Now that's beautiful," Sarge said quietly with almost a nostalgic sense about him.

"I wouldn't say beautiful," Grif replied, "but that is somethin."

"My god, we just destroyed something that huge," Simmons stated in awe.

"I hope we don't have to do THAT again," Donut added.

"You guys did good," Cortana chimed in. Sarge placed Cortana in a control console near one of the seats. Her virtual avatar came up. "Despite the fact I thought you all were a bunch of blundering idiots…you did good."

"Oh I wouldn't go that far," Simmons replied with a mocking voice. "We're still blundering idiots, but we know what we're doing."

"What's that supposed to mean Simmons," Sarge questioned with an angry tone. "Are you suggesting that we're blundering idiots because of me!"

"No sir, because of Grif!"

"That's what I like to hear!" Sarge turned around and punched Grif in the face as Simmons let out a sigh of relief.

"Good lord," Cortana muttered. "You're not even worried if there are any survivors?"

"Survivors," Sarge repeated with a laugh. "Honey, did you see what we did to that ring? Just in case, let's take another look." Sarge leaned forward, staring out of the window there was a large explosion on one of the remains of Halo. "Yeah, there's a good chance there aren't gonna be any survivors!"

"Well," Cortana muttered. "We did what we had to do. For Earth. An entire Covenant armada obliterated and the Flood…"

"Those crazy zombie bastards never saw it coming," Sarge finished loudly. Cortana rolled her virtual eyes and shook her head with a smile.

"Halo…it's finished…"

"Nah," Sarge exclaimed loudly.

"What," Grif shouted, "You want to go back and blow up each one of those chunks or something?"

"No idiot! I'm just saying nah! If anything…" Sarge turned his head back out the window, adding a prolonged silence to add a dramatic effect. "If anything, I'd say we're just gettin started…"

The Longsword fighter drifted through space, leaving the remains of the Halo ring behind for good, leaving the cue for the rolling credits.

**Halo: Combat Red**

Written by: Xorncon – Number 0

Copyrights: Sarge, Grif, Simmons, Donut, Church, Caboose, and Tucker belong to the people of Rooster Teeth Productions.

The magnum from Left 4 Dead 2 belongs to Valve

Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer

Just about everything else in this story belongs to Microsoft

This story and the parody belong to me!

Characters:

Shows the throwing of an Elite out of a Banshee in chapter 3, punching Grif for the first time in chapter 1 after they got out of the cryo-pods, reading Twilight while riding a Sentinel in chapter 8, and finally a cool pose of the Red commander aiming his shotgun at the screen and freezes

**Sarge**

Shows a maroon Spartan crouched with a finger to the side of his helmet as he screamed over the radio, him hurling his assault rifle into the stomach of an Elite in chapter 3, and finally, him starting up the fighter's engines and snapping his head up dramatically in the chapter 11 and freezes

**Simmons**

Shows an orange Spartan kicking a golden Elite off into an endless abyss from chapter 4, him desperately holding onto the Monitor at the beginning of chapter 9 and then landing on his rear, and falling face first into the snow on chapter 6 and freezes

**Grif**

Shows a pink Spartan diving and rolling towards Simmons in chapter 7, disarming and killing a stealth Elite in chapter 3, him firing a Warthog gun turret at nothing in chapter 2, and his head popping out of a pool of thick gooey white stuff in chapter 10 and freezes

**Donut**

Thanks for reading!


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